Kamikubo, Yumi

Uchida, Takashi

Yoshida, Nagahiro

Osaka City University Repository

Mem. Fac. Eng., Osaka City Univ., Vol. 45, pp. 59 - 64 (2004)
User Evaluation of GPS-based Travel Information System for Bus Passengers
Nagahiro YOSHIDA*, Yumi KAMIKUBO**, Takashi UCHIDA***, and Yasuo HINO****
(Received September 30th, 2004)
Synopsis
A Travel Information System for Bus Passengers was experimentally developed using GPS and Web-based information
system. The objective of providing information is to improve time-reliability for passengers. To provide information in
efficient way, the system is designed as passengers can receive operational real-time information by using their mobile
phone or PC according to their requests. A further investigation about information contents or provision methods is
needed to make it more effective. This paper reports on the effect of the system from the viewpoint of user requirements
based on the 3-month demonstration results.
KEYWORDS: Travel Information, Public Transport, GPS, Time-Reliability
1. Introduction
Bus transport service often experiences a delay because of unexpected road congestion or road accidents.
To improve passengers' time-reliability, many types of travel information system have been developed in
Japan. Although these systems reduce passengers' anxiety in waiting at bus stop, but similar systems has not
been introduced in wider area because of two reasons. One is that the system requires a vast initial cost to
install the road-to-vehicle communication system and electronic bulletin board at each bus stop. Another is
that provided information may not satisfy potential demand of passengers because pre-trip information which
assists mode choice based on estimated arrival time for destination doesn't include.
Under these situations, GPS-based bus location systems which can provide real-time information have
spread over nationwide with the advance of technology. The system integrated with fleet management
system has some advantages compared with an ordinary information system. In the system, travelers can
access information by using their mobile phone or PC whenever and wherever they request it. In addition,
the system can obtain global positioning data at relatively low cost.
To realize precise and customized information system which is suitable for travelers' activities, wider
variety of providing methods and information contents are required. Therefore not only web and e-mail
solution for providing information, but also information cart system, which is like an shopping cart system,
were introduced in our study. The information cart system enables users to select the method and/or content
* Research Associate, Department of Urban Engineering
** Master Course Student, Department of Urban Engineering
*** Associate Professor, Department of Urban Engineering
**** Professor, Department of Urban Engineering
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and the users add information contents freely into a virtual cart after customizing schedule or timing
corresponding to the optional needs. Customized operation is required in case of enabling an event-driven
alert function, and users can receive an alert message automatically only when an event would happen. In
addition, as the contents of each cart are stored in databases located on the servers, users can always access
their suitable information and the information contents are refreshed automatically when they access to it. By
using these functions, the information system called Personalized Bus Location System (PBLS) can offer
active and direct information especially for people who require time-reliability in their activities. However,
further investigation about information contents or provision methods is needed to make it more effective
based on those characteristics. This paper reports on some user evaluation results focusing the PBLS service
based on an experimental demonstration.
2.1 Outline of demonstration
3-month demonstration project was conducted at Kizu-minami district in Kyoto Prefecture, Japan from
October in 2002. The area has approximately 1200 households and 3600 population. According to the result
of preliminary survey conducted in January of 2002, 95% of households had owned vehicles, and 53% of
residents had used car for commute. Although, 30% of residents had an intention of changing their travel
mode, it depended on an introduction of newly convenient bus routes. Then, additional bus service between
the area and Takanohara railway station (Kyoto Line of KINKI NIPPON RAILWAY CO., LTD) was
designed, which consisted of 12 bus stops and it took about 21 minutes between 8.3km for one way. The
time-headway of bus was 30 minutes during peak hours and 60 minutes during off-peak hours, and the
number of weekday round trip was 23. With the experimental operation, GPS-equipped three vehicles were
introduced to demonstrate the PBLS supported financially by Kinki Regional Development Bureau, Ministry
of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.
Figure-l Location of newly introduced bus service
2.2 Outline of Surveys
During the demonstration, a series of surveys was continuously conducted to observe responses to the
service according to respondents' type shown in Table-I. Because the number of passengers during the
demonstration was between 80 and 120 per day, the number of respondents resulted in relatively small.
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Table-l Summary of Surveys
Survey
name
survey II i byJXH iii G i: i i 116%~---l~~~·l~ZbID···l::·=::-····_·l··---··~·····l-········~-l··_·········;·_·_·····l········ __··~·_·_······_·r-·---· __ ~.:~: __ _._----
I: In-depth contents, G: General contents
3. Analysis of User Evaluation
3.1 Needs for Information
In the interview survey, respondents were asked about mainly three contents after being explained the
PBLS; experience of delay in the past, needs for information, and interests of the PBLS. Nearly half of
respondents had experienced a delay, and they regarded the main cause of the delay as road congestion. From
the result shown in Figure-2, nearly 80% of respondents required delay information. Furthermore, people
who experienced a delay have a tendency to request the information. These findings suggest that travelers are
seemed to expect estimated operational information in advance.
I ~ absolutely need neither I
i__r:la~~.!ly n~~.~e~d . .. ~i
often(n =12)
>-.
~
~
~ occasionally(n= 16)
o
Q)
u
.~ not almost(n=10)
Q)
0..
><
Q) not at all(n= 13)
total(n=51)
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Figure-2 Needs of Information according to the Experience of Delay
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With regard to interests in the service provided for PC or cellular phone, figure-3 shows that more than
80% of respondents revealed to be useful. In addition, some interesting suggestions for further improvements
were shown from the results that the contents for cellular phone had higher interests than the contents for PC,
and that non-bus-user had not a few concerns about the service.
r------------··.·--.-·--·-~------·----------· - -_ ..- ------.--.. -.----------.---.----.-.-.-.. --.------.
~ very useful relatively userful neither Ii unknown i
bus non-user(n=39)
bus user(n=55)
total (n =94)
11 I
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Figure-3 User Interests for Providing Information (Information for PC)
3.2 Purpose and Value of Use
Figure-4 shows that respondents have an intention to use the service for the purpose of checking current
operation, timetable, and expected time. From the viewpoint of user intention, this result suggests that there
are needs for support decision-making about mode choice related to their travel activity. Besides, as travelers
didn't know the timetable exactly when they were going to home, providing such information to their mobile
phone is considered to be convenient.
On the other hand, about 40% of users had an intention to use the service even in case of being charged,
and it is also considered that introducing such an information service has a higher value on congested routes.
for suport decision-making about go-offtime(n=16)
for conftrrn timetable(n= 16)
for conftrrn current operation(n =16)
for comfrrm expected arrival time(n= 16)
for decrease anxiety(n= 16)
50%
for suport decision-making about route(n=16) 0%
for suport decision-making about mode(n=16)
for suport decision-making about schedule(n= 16)
13%
______. J
0% 20% 40% 60%
Figure-4 Purpose of Using Information
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3.3 Subjective analysis of service usage
According to the results of Survey in Bus part I and II, The service provided during demonstration period
was highly recognized among passengers because of publicity or promotion activities. During the period, the
total number of information requests via PC was 3061 (33.3 per day) and 1380 (15.0 per day) was via mobile
phone. To evaluate a characteristic of the actual use of real-time information subjectively, the number of
access to the information server per day was analyzed using web-log data in Poisson regression method.
Several types of variables were considered in this analysis. These included demonstration months, day of the
week, hour, weather condition, and publicity effects. As all the variables in the analysis are dummy variables,
the relative magnitudes of the coefficients represent an estimate of the important of the variables in
influencing the probabilities of user requests. The output of the analysis in table-2 showed that almost every
variable was significant effect and an adjusted R-square was sufficient to understand the effects. The result
indicated that there were daily needs to request the information except during morning hours because a
coefficient of weekday was relatively higher than weekend. With regard to month effect, the number of
requests was decreased month by month. This tendency was for a reason of no delays in the bus operation
during demonstration. The result also showed that higher requests were shown in case of bad weather
conditions. This result is to be considered that providing real-time information was useful especially under
environmental uncertainty conditions.
Table-2 Result of Poisson regression analysis
Variable Coefficient Standard t-Statistic Probe
variation
Month November(D) 1.039 0.043 24.055 0.000 **December(D) 0.082 0.050 1.628 0.104
WeekdayxMon.(D) 0.360 0.060 5.951 0.000 **
Day of th~ Weekdayx Tue.(D) 0.317 0.052 6.098 0.000 **WeekdayxWed.(D) 0.296 0.052 5.738 0.000 **
week WeekdayxThu(D) 0.317 0.052 6.104 0.000 **
WeekdayxFri.(D) 0.393 0.050 7.934 0.000 **
7 0.577 0.177 3.263 0.001 **
8 1.275 0.160 7.973 0.000 **
9 1.701 0.154 11.062 0.000 **
10 1.585 0.155 10.211 0.000 **
11 1.445 0.157 9.188 0.000 **
12 1.593 0.155 10.271 0.000 **
13 1.726 0.153 11.247 0.000 **
Hour 14 1.556 0.156 9.999 0.000 **15 1.597 0.155 10.301 0.000 **
16 1.522 0.156 9.748 0.000 **
17 1.733 0.153 11.300 0.000 **
18 1.637 0.155 10.591 0.000 **
19 1.509 0.156 9.652 0.000 **
20 1.548 0.156 9.937 0.000 **
21 1.751 0.153 11.429 0.000 **
22 1.649 0.154 10.676 0.000 **
Weather Rainfall or snowfall 0.172 0.034 5.083 0.000 **
Publicity Distributed day 0.341 0.039 8.824 0.000 **
Constant -1.504 0.149 -10.085 0.000 **
R2 0.329
Adjusted R2 0.318
Num. of Observation 1564
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4. Conclusions
This study reports on user evaluation of the PBLS based on 3-month demonstration results from a series
of surveys. The demonstration and surveys were conducted to observe needs for providing bus information
toward the realization of efficient information system. In spite of limited experiment and surveys, some
fundamental findings about the effectiveness of the PBLS were obtained. Further improvements based on the
results are required to make it more convenient for passengers. With regard to information contents, the
results also suggested that the information supporting traveler's pre-activities was expected to realize further
reliable activities through public transport system.
Acknowledgement
The Personalize Bus Location System was developed and demonstrated as ITS project supported by
Kinki Regional Development Bureau, Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. The authors wish to
express thanks for the helpful comments and supports of committee members of the project.
REFERENCES
(1) Nagahiro YOSHIDA, Takashi UCHIDA, and Yasuo HINO:A Case Study on Time Reliability Evaluation of Bus
Transportation by using GPS, Proceedings of Infrastructure Planning, Japan Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. 27
(CD-ROM), 2003. (in Japanese)
(2) "A Report on investigation about ITS project in Kansai Science City", Kyoto National Road Construction Works
Office of Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and Kansai Research Institute, 2003. (in Japanese)
(3) Jeffrey L. Adler and Victor J. Blue: Toward the design of intelligent traveller information systems, Transportation
Research part C, Vol. 6, pp. 157-172, 1998.
(4) Terence C. Lam and Kenneth A. Small: The value of time and reliability: measurement from a value pricing
experiment, Transportation Research part E, Vol. 37, pp. 231-251, 2001.
(5) P. Rietvel, F.R. Bruinsma and DJ. van Vuuren: Coping with unreliability in public transport chains, Transportation
Research part A, Vol. 35, pp. 539-559, 2001.
(6) Susan Kenyon and Glenn Lyons: The value of integrated multimodal traveller information and its potential
contribution to modal change, Transportation Research part F, Vol. 6, pp. 1-21,2003.
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User Evaluation of GPS-based Travel Information System for Bus Passengers

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User Evaluation of GPS-based Travel Information System for Bus Passengers

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