TAD T RAVEL A SSISTANCE M OBILE A PP TO H ELP T RANSIT R IDERS Sean J. Barbeau Center for Urban Transportation Research & Department of Computer Science and Engineering Research funded by the Florida Department of Transportation, the National Center for Transit Research, and the Transportation Research Board IDEA Program

The Challenges Potential Rider Individuals with mental/cognitive disabilities (14.3M Americans, 6% of pop.)¹ often have problems with quick actions required by transit Paratransit option limits livability and curtails independence Transit Agency Paratransit is expensive: $27.90 per one-way trip versus $3.20 per one-way trip (bus) and can be restrictive to riders Travel training helps reduce learning curve for fixed route transit but demand outpaces supply 1 - National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. “Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP)”, 1997.

Develop first navigation app for public transportation using GPS-enabled mobile phones – Alert user when to get off the bus with audio, visual, and tactile prompts – Target simplicity, with cognitively disabled in mind – Use defacto standard General Transit Feed Spec. for data S OLUTION : TAD - T RAVEL A SSISTANCE M OBILE A PP 33

TAD W EB P AGE – C REATE T RIPS 4

TAD - T RAVEL A SSISTANCE M OBILE A PP 5  Transit Rider Selects Trip That Was Planned On Website

TAD - T RAVEL A SSISTANCE M OBILE A PP 6 –While waiting for bus, rider sees estimated time until arrival and headsign for bus (vibration alert w/ 5 min. left) 9:589:579:569:559:549:539:529:519:509:499:489:479:469:459:449:439:429:419:402:00

TAD - T RAVEL A SSISTANCE M OBILE A PP 7 –When the vehicle is within ~2 minutes of arrival, "NOW ARRIVING...” shows, with vibration alert

On Bus… Then the user hears: “Get Ready!” a few stops before destination TAD - T RAVEL A SSISTANCE M OBILE A PP

Then, “Pull the Cord Now!” when the rider should exit the bus TAD - T RAVEL A SSISTANCE M OBILE A PP

TAD W EB P AGE – R EAL - TIME T RACKING 10

F IELD T ESTS AT F IVE F LORIDA A GENCIES 11 Initially developed with Hillsborough Area Regional Transit (HART) in Tampa, FL – With travel trainer Mark Sheppard Tested in four more counties: – Pinellas – Sarasota – Miami-Dade – Broward

C OLLABORATION WITH F LORIDA M ENTAL H EALTH I NSTITUTE Partnered with Florida Mental Health Institute to study impact of TAD on real transit riders Purpose: – Determine if prompts given by TAD would exhibit stimulus control over participants’ behavior of: 1.Pulling the stop request cord 2.Exit the bus at the appropriate stop. 3 participants with moderate intellectual disabilities riding Hillsborough Area Regional Transit (safeguards in place)

I DENTICAL R ESULTS : 33 D ATA P OINTS WITH 3 P ARTICIPANTS Exit Bus Request Stop

USF P ARTNERSHIP WITH DAJUTA USF has partnered with DAJUTA to offer TAD as a commercial service to transit riders and transit agencies Blackberry app available, Android coming soon… See dajuta.com for more info 14

N EXT S TEPS 15 Explore how TAD could help other populations – Visual/hearing impairments, physical impairments – Additional collaboration with USF FMHI – Collaboration with Veterans Administration Other mobile app research: – TRAC-IT – travel behavior research tool – Personalized real-time travel info, based on predicted destinations and paths – OpenTripPlanner – multimodal trip planning

Q UESTIONS ? Sean J. Barbeau, M.S. Comp.Sci. Research Associate Center for Urban Transportation Research University of South Florida