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From Data to Business Information in Real Time: the Benefits of End-to-End ITS

Author: Trapeze Group
March 2005
Reprinted from ITS United Kingdom Handbook 2005

There are a number of benefits that have driven investment in intelligent transport systems in the UK passenger transport industry in recent years. One key driver has been the promise of more convenience for passengers, which translates into increased customer satisfaction. Another very important driver is improved efficiency: central and local government, transport authorities, agencies and commercial operators all recognise the need to become more efficient in the way they plan, manage and deliver fixed, flexible and demand responsive transport services. Investments in information and communication technologies can provide return on investment through increased patronage and more efficient planning, resource allocation, and information management.

What ITS Means Today

What are these technologies that promise greater convenience and efficiency? For many in the passenger transport industry, ITS still primarily means in-vehicle systems, including equipment for mobile data communication and GPS-based automatic vehicle location (AVL), automatic passenger counters (APCs), automated ticketing, video surveillance, announcement systems and more.

As was mentioned above, ITS also means advanced traveller information systems, such as “smart bus stops” that display arrival times and countdowns and journey planners accessed through the wired or wireless Internet and computerised voice systems.

More than the “Front Office”

However, to truly deliver value to the organization and its customers, ITS must touch more than just what we might call the “front office.” Rather, ITS ought to inform and connect every part of a passenger transport organisation, including the operations/dispatch centre and the “back office,” which can include service planning and scheduling divisions.

Many agencies have long since automated key back office and operations systems and processes through applications such as computer assisted dispatch, automated scheduling, duty planning, inventory management, GIS planning tools, and more. The vision lacking until recently, however, has been an “end-to-end” approach to designing ITS that seamlessly connects the back office, the dispatch centre, in-vehicle systems and passengers “on the go.”

Many Components, One System: the End-to-End Approach

Transport organisations that have embarked on ITS projects have typically sought to integrate a number of disparate systems based on proprietary technologies. Interfacing discrete systems can be challenging, to say the least. Those who have taken this approach to system integration may not be getting full value from their data, because that data cannot easily be leveraged as “business intelligence.” In-vehicle systems, for example, are not automatically feeding real-time information to planning, scheduling and dispatch systems as they ought to in a true ITS environment.

Think Regional

In designing an ITS, it isn’t enough to ensure internal interoperability and integration of systems; organisations also have to consider the broader regional context for their ITS initiatives and plan for integration with external systems. While this may not initially seem like a driving factor, the eventual need for regional collaboration will require that systems allow for data sharing and the interconnection of dissimilar systems in a low-risk, robust fashion.

A Foundation for the Future

This end-to-end integration we have been describing requires an underlying, enabling framework or foundation. In order to deliver seamless connectivity, an ITS system must incorporate the following:

• open software architecture to accommodate future needs
• transparency to underlying hardware
• platform independence to enable true mobility
• standard protocols for system to system data exchange (such as TransXchange)
• standard protocols for communication (TCP-IP)
  

Without these characteristics, a system tends to be both cumbersome and limited in its ability to share information. As well as ensuring supportability, adaptability, longevity, this open system architecture enables an essentially modular approach to ITS that rapidly brings new components and new business information online.

Intelligent Solutions. The Possibilities Are Endless

A few examples will demonstrate what this approach makes possible:

• Passenger and ticketing data can be collected by the in-vehicle APC system and wirelessly downloaded in real time to the back office; that data, in combination with route, schedule and AVL data, can be used to make service adjustments and for internal or external reporting.
• Real time schedule adherence information fed from an AVL system enables “connection protection” – providing automatic notification of late arrivals and ensuring that transfers between buses or inter-modal transfers remain possible.
• A mobile computing system used for real-time data communication and vehicle location by a demand responsive service also enables remote installation, updating and maintenance of on-board applications, resulting in significantly lower maintenance costs.
• Integration of computer assisted dispatch, demand response and fixed route scheduling with one central database enables a multi-modal agency to develop a truly integrated service which balances convenience and accessibility with cost efficiency.
• The recent launch of Transport Direct by the DfT highlights the challenge facing local authorities and passenger transport operators to sustain the quality of passenger transport service information. The planned introduction of Electronic Bus Service Registration will help address this issue. The use by authorities and operators of integrated, end-to-end ITS will ensure that data and information is produced once, used many times.
  

By creating a continuous information flow from the vehicle to the back office and back, transport agencies can implement systems that leverage data to improve service and deliver operational efficiencies throughout the organisation.