Evaluation Of User Impacts Of Transit Automatic Vehicle Location Systems In Medium And Small Sized Transit Systems

"TRB's Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Synthesis 73: AVL Systems for Bus Transit: Update explores the uses of computer-aided dispatch/automatic vehicle location (CAD/AVL) systems in fixed-route and demand-responsive services (bus AVL), as well as changes in agency practices related to the use of AVL systems."--Publisher's website.

TCRP Report 136: Guidebook for Rural Demand-Response Transportation: Measuring, Assessing, and Improving Performance will be of interest to rural public transportation systems that provide demand-response transit (DRT) services and to the communities they serve. The Guidebook is a resource to assist DRT systems to measure, assess, and improve their performance, focusing on DRT systems in rural areas.

This study explores the means through which automatic vehicle location (AVL) systems can be used to provide off-line data and reports for planning and management purposes. A review of the literature and discussions with transit system representatives determined that there are three distinct types of off- line activities that can benefit from the use of AVL data: planning and scheduling; line management information; and executive information. These three activities are found to generally use the same information, but require it to be presented in different formats and levels of aggregation. The system design guidelines are presented in the form of a checklist offering recommendations and suggestions to facilitate the use of AVL for planning and management information in transit properties designing or tendering new AVL systems. The guidelines cover organisational, systems, and reporting issues. The appendices contain a large selection of examples of reports generated using AVL, organised under the three types of information.