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Center for Urban Transportation Research | University of South Florida OneBusAway Multi-region Rapidly Expanding Mobile Transit Apps to New Cities Sean J. Barbeau, Ph.D.

2014 CUTR Webinar - OneBusAway Multi-region – Rapidly expanding mobile transit apps to new cities

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View a recording of this webinar at http://bit.ly/CUTR_Webcast_OBA_Multiregion Real-time transit information offers many benefits to transit riders, including reduced wait times and increased customer satisfaction. However, offering real-time transit services has been challenging for many transit agencies. While mobile apps have emerged as a preferred dissemination method for real-time information, it is typically cost-prohibitive for transit agencies to fund custom development of native mobile apps for all popular smartphone platforms. Third-party developers can offer services if an agency openly shares real-time data, but these individuals are volunteers whose priorities and deadlines may not be the same as the agency’s. As a result, few cities have full app portfolios that cover all smartphone platforms. This CUTR webcast presentation on April 17, 2014 discussed the OneBusAway multi-region project, a collaborative effort that is enabling the rapid expansion of native mobile transit apps to new cities. OneBusAway is an open-source transit information system that has provided real-time transit services to the Puget Sound, WA area since 2008. The new OneBusAway multi-region feature expands the coverage of the existing Android, iPhone, Windows Phone, and Windows 8 apps for OneBusAway to new cities including Tampa and Atlanta. The multi-region system architecture, collaborative design and development process, and lessons learned from this ground-breaking project are discussed. The fundamental shift from proprietary to open-source software in the transit industry that has made this type of project possible is also examined. - See more at: http://www.nctr.usf.edu/2014/04/onebusaway-multi-region-rapidly-expanding-mobile-transit-apps-to-new-cities/?utm_source=transptdm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=webcast#sthash.LMEQbjgb.dpuf

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Page 1: 2014 CUTR Webinar - OneBusAway Multi-region – Rapidly expanding mobile transit apps to new cities

Center for Urban Transportation Research | University of South Florida

OneBusAway Multi-regionRapidly Expanding Mobile Transit Apps to New Cities

Sean J. Barbeau, Ph.D.

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Background

• Real-time transit information has many benefits– Shorter perceived wait time [1]

– Shorter actual wait time [1]

– Lowers learning curve for new riders [2]

– Increased ridership (maybe?) [3]

– Increased feeling of safety (e.g., at night) [5][6]

• Riders prefer accessing real-time transit info via mobile apps [1]

[1] Kari Edison Watkins, Brian Ferris, Alan Borning, G. Scott Rutherford, and David Layton (2011), "Where Is My Bus? Impact of mobile real-time information on the perceived and actual wait time of transit riders," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Vol. 45 pp. 839-848.[2] C. Cluett, S. Bregman, and J. Richman (2003). "Customer Preferences for Transit ATIS," Federal Transit Administration. Available at http://ntl.bts.gov/lib/jpodocs/repts_te/13935/13935.pdf#sthash.jwn5Oltr.dpuf[3] Lei Tang and Piyushimita Thakuriah (2012), "Ridership effects of real-time bus information system: A case study in the City of Chicago," Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, Vol. 22 pp. 146-161.[4] Aaron Steinfeld and John Zimmerman, "Interviews with transit riders in San Francisco and Seattle," ed, 2010.[5] Brian Ferris, Kari Watkins, and Alan Borning (2010), "OneBusAway: results from providing real-time arrival information for public transit," in Proceedings of the 28th International CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, pp. 1807-1816. [6] A. Gooze, K. Watkins, and A. Borning (2013), "Benefits of Real-Time Information and the Impacts of Data Accuracy on the Rider Experience," in Transportation Research Board 92nd Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., January 13, 2013.

Tony Kurdzuk/The Star-Ledger

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Challenge

• Custom mobile apps are expensive– Some estimates > $150,000k for a single platform [7]

– Doesn’t include maintenance cost• Implementing and maintaining custom apps on all

popular smartphone platforms is cost-prohibitive• Open data is good, but doesn’t always result in

apps by 3rd party developers• How can we cost-effectively launch mobile transit

apps in new cities?

[7] Larry Lauvray "iPad App Development Cost - A Breakdown." Propelics Blog, Vol. Accessed at: http://www.propelics.com/ipad-app-development-cost-a-breakdown/

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OneBusAway

• Open-source real-time transit information system

• Originally developed at University of Washington– Ph.D. work of Brian Ferris and Kari Watkins– Used in multiple research studies to understand

how real-time info affects transit riders• Includes server-side software

– Process bulk real-time transit info– Provides Application Programming Interface

(API) for apps• Includes mobile apps for:

– iPhone– Android– Windows Phone– Windows 8

http://onebusaway.org

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OneBusAway – Mobile Apps

Android Windows Phone &Windows 8

iPhone

Support user location, route, stop contextual/personalized informationAll OPEN-SOURCE!

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OneBusAway

• 2012 – Mobile apps only available in Puget Sound

• How do we expand them to new cities?

http://onebusaway.org

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Original OneBusAway mobile app design

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Why don’t we duplicate the mobile apps for each city?

• Creates app maintenance work for each city, per platform

• Clutters app stores

• Fragments source code

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OneBusAway “multi-region” design

• Each region maintains its own OneBusAway server software, but uses the same mobile apps– Reduces burden on regions to maintain apps– Eliminates burden on a centralized entity to maintain

data quality control, servers, and customer support for each new region

– Doesn’t clutter app stores – all users download the same “OneBusAway” app for all regions

• “You bring the server, we bring the apps”

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Multi-region architecture

• Region information is stored in centralized server directory (i.e., Regions API)

• Apps now find nearby regions using Regions API

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OneBusAway Server Directory

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OBA – Android app

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New OneBusAway Region Checklist

Transit Data in GTFS format AVL system that provides arrival estimates Implement a GTFS-realtime (or SIRI) feed Set up a OneBusAway Server Do some quality-control testing Launch OneBusAway apps in new city!

• Via request to onebusway-developers group!

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Adding OneBusAway regions to apps

• Following the request to the onebusaway_developer group, the new region can be added

• Two stages for a new region:1. Experimental:

• Regions in development• Users can enable in iPhone and Android apps via “Settings-

>Enable Experimental Regions”

2. Production:• Meets a certain standard in terms of quality and quantity of real-

time data• Region is available in all apps by default• See http://goo.gl/ydbc0c for details

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ONEBUSAWAY TAMPASetting up a new OneBusAway region – a case study

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New OneBusAway Region Checklist

Transit Data in GTFS format AVL system that provides arrival estimates Implement a GTFS-realtime (or SIRI) feed Set up a OneBusAway Server Do some quality-control testing Launch OneBusAway apps in new city!

- Here’s where we started in Tampa…

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HART AVL OrbCAD

SQL Server

HARTUSF

OneBusAway

HART Buses

HART Comm.Tower

Trip/Vehicle Updates

USF OneBusAway

server

USFGTFS-realtime

USFGTFS-realtime

server

Real-time info

request

Real-time info

response

Real-time info

request

Real-time info

response

Creating a new region - Tampa

1. Establish a GTFS-realtime feed

GTFS-realtime software is open-source :https://github.com/CUTR-at-USF/HART-GTFS-realtimeGenerator/wiki

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HART AVL OrbCAD

SQL Server

HARTUSF

OneBusAway

HART Buses

HART Comm.Tower

Trip/Vehicle Updates

USF OneBusAway

server

USFGTFS-realtime

USFGTFS-realtime

server

Real-time info

request

Real-time info

response

Real-time info

request

Real-time info

response

Creating a new region - Tampa

2. Configure OneBusAway software

GTFS-realtime software is open-source :https://github.com/CUTR-at-USF/HART-GTFS-realtimeGenerator/wiki

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GTFS-realtime format (in plain text)

trip_update { trip { trip_id: "974372" } stop_time_update { stop_sequence: 17 arrival { delay: -180 uncertainty: 30 } stop_id: "571" } vehicle { id: "1301" }}

Estimated Arrival Times (TripUpdate)

Data displayed in mobile apps

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GTFS-realtime format (in plain text)

trip_update { trip { trip_id: "974372" } stop_time_update { stop_sequence: 17 arrival { delay: -180 uncertainty: 30 } stop_id: "571" } vehicle { id: "1301" }}

vehicle { trip { trip_id: "974372" } position { latitude: 28.02931 longitude: -82.456566 bearing: 360.0 speed: 0.0 } vehicle { id: "1301" }}

Estimated Arrival Times (TripUpdate) Vehicle Locations (VehiclePositions)

Data displayed in mobile apps

Not currently used by mobile apps

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OBA – Android app

Delay value

Arrival estimate, based on real-time delay

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Challenges – Technology / Process

Challenge Solution / Lesson Learned

Old documentation for OneBusAway at the start of the project

Create new documentation!Painful at first, but helps others

Unknown accuracy of arrival times from vendor AVL

On-the-ground testing and validation necessaryAfter several iterations, got good results!

Communication with various parties• Agency ITS staff• Agency IT staff• Agency Marketing staff• Vendor

Get upper-management buy-in for Agency, have in-person meetings. Identify champion within agency.Takes time, but reduces overall turnaround time for requests

OneBusAway Tampa

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Challenge Solution / Lesson Learned

GTFS - arrival time for Stop A is after arrival time for Stop B during trip

Work with agency to resolve problemShow the agency error in software, create documentation to explain the current data issues with examples

GTFS - Seconds resolution (“HH:MM:SS” ) for time not included ”GTFS - Incorrect route URLs prevented app users from seeing schedules ”AVL - tripIDs not matching GTFS tripIDs Examine data dictionary for AVL system,

talk directly to vendorConference call helped resolve issue

AVL - Flipped +/- for delay value Extensive troubleshooting and isolation of issue, talk directly to vendorFinally resulted in on-site meeting, where we resolved the problem

AVL – Agency database replication issues ”

AVL - Use “deviation” or “predicted_deviation” value?

On-the-ground testing and validation necessaryAfter several iterations, got good results!

Challenges – Data

OneBusAway Tampa

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Tampa - From pilot to production

• USF launched a pilot of OneBusAway in Tampa with approximately 200 users in February 2013.– Partnered with Georgia Tech to do controlled study

of impact of real-time info on riders– USF maintained OneBusAway for the pilot

• Public launch – August 2013– HART adopted OneBusAway Tampa, now runs on

their servers (tampa.onebusaway.org)

– USF assisted HART in preparing RFP for long-term vendor support (began February 2014)

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LESSONS LEARNED & CONCLUSIONS

The “take-away”

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Lessons Learned

• Open-source software enabled this project – many contributors– Git and Github are huge enablers

• Volunteer developers are great for general advancement of the project, but for time-sensitive, or specific, tasks paid developers may be required

• Identifying an on-going funding source is important for limited centralized operations (e.g., review and merging of software contributions from community)

• Pattern of “tech demo -> production” region deployments seems to be emerging

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Conclusions

• OneBusAway mobile apps in new cities:– Tampa (tampa.onebusaway.org – Hillsborough Area Regional Transit)

– Atlanta (atlanta.onebusaway.org – Georgia Tech, w/ data from MARTA)

– Washington, D.C. (tech demo - http://oba.mobilitylab.org/ - Mobility Lab)

– York Region, Canada (tech demo – York Region Transit)

– (More soon)!• OneBusAway multi-region -> easy to add new

cities in the future– Sustainable, scalable, low-cost, and low-maintenance

model

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Future work

• Ongoing research to understand impact of real-time info on riders– Helps us understand what users want, how to

encourage use of non-single occupancy vehicle modes– Justifies investments in the technology

• New features– Improved issue reporting– Contributions from deployments– OneBusAway for Google Glass– Others…

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Acknowledgements

• Full acknowledgements for OneBusAway Multi-region Initiative are at:– http://bit.ly/OBA_multiregion_blog

• Funding for USF’s work provided by the National Center for Transit Research

• Hillsborough Area Regional Transit, for data and support of the OneBusAway Tampa public deployment

• University of Washington and Georgia Tech, for continued involvement in the project

• All OneBusAway community members

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Thanks!

Sean J. Barbeau, [email protected]