BusBuzzard and WideWorld : decreasing the uncertainty of multimodal transportation

Abstract

Recent research has found that in some cases travel time variance is more important than mean travel time in travel mode choice. This implies shared infrastructure transportation modes prone to service unreliability stand at a disadvantage even if they are on average faster than automobile travel. Real-time status and historical availability statistics gleaned from vehicle instrumentation provide a natural complement to such systems, reducing travel uncertainty without the infrastructural investment normally required to increase reliability. I present two projects that explore the idea that a web-work of data-producing shared infrastructure joined by user-facing traveler information systems comprise an aggregate transportation mode competitive with automobile transit. The first, WideWorld, is a multimodal trip planner incorporating real time bicycle share availability. The second, Bus Buzzard draws on millions of bus GPS fixes to generate probabilistic bus schedules in some cases more reliable than printed schedules.