Innovative ITS tool kit to help rural transit systems

Ninety million rural residents of the United States may be the direct beneficiaries of a plan now in the works at the Small Urban & Rural Transit Center (SURTC). SURTC is creating a tool kit for the approximately 1,200 rural transit organizations that provide fixed-route and demand-responsive services. Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) applications, widely applied to the highway system, and in use in an increasing number of urban transit systems, have not been widely employed by rural systems.

Small urban and rural systems have not been able to purchase and adopt the many new technologies in computers, telecommunications and information systems used by larger urban transit systems that have greater resources and capabilities.

Three factors contributing to limited technology use by rural systems are:

• The lack of financial resources to acquire and maintain new technologies always challenges innovation. Through the SURTC tool kit, rural systems can determine the cost effectiveness of such investments.
• Rural transit managers may not have the time or the knowledge necessary to sort through the volume of information and complex articles available. SURTC will sort through the information to show potential benefits.
• Rural transit systems may lack personnel with the specialized knowledge and skills to evaluate and implement high-tech solutions. The SURTC research team does the literature review and screens reports, publications and Web sites relevant for rural transit operations.

Through SURTC, a rural ITS tool kit will help inform rural transit system operators of the choices available. This will let them systematically and quickly determine the costs and benefits of each technology as applied to their individual operation. The ITS tool kit can help systems make the best use of their dollars.

As SURTC team members work initially to review literature and the state of ITS practice, they are also developing an evaluation criteria framework. Cost/benefit factors for each ITS technology will lead to information summaries about fleet management systems, travel information systems, electronic fare collection and other emerging technologies with potential transit application.

Their summaries will include a generic description of each application and the technological components involved; a listing of American, Canadian and European vendors; transit systems of all sizes that have implemented the technology; written case study and/or evaluation reports on the technology or specific applications, and the data required to allow for evaluation of the cost/benefit factors criteria.

Development of case study sites should begin this spring at five to 10 locations around the country. SURTC staff will make site visits to each case study location to observe the application of one or more ITS technologies and will obtain data and subjective information to provide the best information for the tool kit.

Preparation and pilot tests of the tool kit will then begin. This draft version will go to volunteer transit managers to determine if it is understandable and, more importantly, if it is an effective management tool. Revisions will be based on feedback from the pilot tests.

Jill Hough, director of SURTC, is co-principal investigator for the project and will be responsible for carrying out the management functions of the project. The other co-principal investigators are Del Peterson and James Miller. Patrick Nichols, UGPTI Website development professional, is responsible for packaging the tool kit in CD form.