1. The Right Kind of Information Silos
What should be unified and where diversity is key
2019 CALACT Spring Conference
Thomas Craig, General Manager
Portland, Oregon

2. Individual vs the Community
Concepts
Individual vs the Community
Individual
Cars
Personalized apps
Community
Public Transit
Unified apps
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3. Information silos vs multimodal systems
Concepts
Information silos vs multimodal systems
Information silos
Fixed-route trip Planners
Taxi booking app
Multimodal systems
Flexible trip planning
One-call One-click
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4. Duplicated processes vs unified systems
Concepts
Duplicated processes vs unified systems
Duplicated processes
Configure AVL, Google, Website separately
Stop asset inventory and GTFS database
Unified systems
All end points drawn from GTFS
Stops database linked to other systems
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5. Obviously, we need one big unified system that supports a perfect app that serves all our customers.
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6. Sorry, not that simple.
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7. The obvious answer isn’t the right one
Misconceptions
The obvious answer isn’t the right one
The desire to prevent duplication of work has led us to try to unify our data architectures and our user interfaces.
That’s good for data architectures.
That’s often bad for user interfaces.
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8. Data architecture
What makes a good one?
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9. Data architecture
What makes a good one?
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10. Data architecture
What makes a good one?
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11. Data architecture
What makes a good one?
There’s no way around different pieces being involved--in fact that’s the point.
The critical goal is to ensure that those pieces interact through standardized connections in a modular system.
Often times, having one vendor causes more complications than multiple vendors.
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12. Application-centric design
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13. Standards-centric design
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14. User Interfaces
What makes a good one?
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15. User Interfaces
What makes a good one?
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16. User Interfaces
What makes a good one?
A good user interface is as simple as it can possibly be.
Everything but the interaction points are should be totally hidden from the user.
The number and context of interaction points must be limited and refined.
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17. Data systems and user interfaces
What makes a good one?
Data architectures have to be extensible. You have to be able to plug things in.
User interfaces should avoid “extensions”.
Is our container pod a “good user interface”? Maybe within a certain context, but you can’t just tell a person “you live here” without pointing them to the right door. It would be confusing.

19. So what does the agency do?
How does an agency maintain good data and support diverse users?
Use data standards wherever possible
Expect technology vendors to get data from other systems and/or provide data to other systems
Accept “free” things from the market where available, and where you understand “free”
Invest in the things the market doesn’t provide
Expect maintenance to cost more than estimated
Is our container pod a “good user interface”? Maybe within a certain context, but you can’t just tell a person “you live here” without pointing them to the right door. It would be confusing.

20. Who are your disadvantaged riders?
They deserve good user interfaces too.
Help them out. Build them the silo the market won’t provide.
Is our container pod a “good user interface”? Maybe within a certain context, but you can’t just tell a person “you live here” without pointing them to the right door. It would be confusing.
Thomas Craig, General Manager
Portland, Oregon