1. NDinfo.org: Building a Regional Transit Travel Information System David Ripplinger Associate Research Fellow Small Urban & Rural Transit Center Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute North Dakota State University October 20, 2008 Rural and Intercity Bus Conference Omaha, Nebraska

2. Outline Background & Motivation Initial Effort Retooled Project Current Status Next Steps Concluding Remarks

3. Background & Motivation Value of Information Transit fare and schedule information Economies of scale Coordinate regional multimodal trips Leveraging the internet Statewide effort

4. Initial Effort Project began in 2003 Part of a larger effort Ambitious in scope – Fare and schedule information dissemination – Scheduling, reservation, billing Sustainability Agency updates Launched in 2004

5. New Plan The motivation was sound The plan was too ambitious The database was corrupt The language was obsolete …start from scratch

6. First Phase Objective: Basic Functionality Online Searchable Database -Service information for all 5307 and 5311 providers -Web design and development -Maintenance and profile updates

7. Second Phase Maintain the functionality of first phase Maintenance and data updates Static maps of routes/service areas Trip itinerary planning tool – Google Transit – Database http://ndinfo.org/

8. Currently Under Development: Static Maps Static Map Development Page Link

9. Currently Under Development: Google Transit Exploring potential as a platform for building multiagency, regional trips Related project: Fargo-Moorhead MAT Bus

10. Currently Under Development: Database Trip Planner Similar to original planned functionality – City-to-City search – Multi-leg trips System control

11. Next Steps… Maintain the existing system Maps City-to-City Search Reservation/ Scheduling …not to get ahead of ourselves

12. Concluding Remarks "inch by inch life's a cinch, yard by yard life is hard"