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Title:

From Idealism to Realism: Lessons Learned from Development of Standards-Based Software for Advanced Public Transportation Systems

Accession Number:

01337751

Record Type:

Component

Abstract:

The important goals of standardized interfaces for software applications are maximizing interoperability and reducing efforts required to scale interfaces to many systems. Unidentified differences in standardized systems due to ambiguity in specifications and different interpretations of a standard can unexpectedly increase the amount of effort required to implement each additional interface. A Travel Assistance Device (TAD) mobile phone application that provides real-time navigation guidance to transit riders was recently scaled from operating with one Florida transit agency to five other agencies. The TAD mobile phone application was also tested on several additional cell phones beyond the initial phone used for software development. During this deployment effort, inconsistencies in standardized systems utilizing the General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) and the Java Micro Edition (Java ME) Location Application Programming Interface (API) were discovered. This paper discusses the lessons learned when implementing software utilizing these two popular standards related to advanced public transportation systems (APTS) and location-based services (LBS) and outlines how the challenges were overcome. Stakeholders in APTS and LBS including transit agencies and software developers must understand the benefits and limitations of these standards. While standardized systems, even with variations, are still less costly than proprietary interfaces, stakeholders must be able to properly anticipate the effort required to scale from a system that operates with a single agency or single mobile device to wide deployment to multiple agencies and many mobile devices.

Monograph Accession #:

01329018

Report/Paper Numbers:

11-2254

Language:

English

Corporate Authors:

Transportation Research Board

500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001 United States

Authors:

Barbeau, Sean J
Georggi, Nevine Labib
Winters, Philip L
Gordon, Marcy E

Pagination:

13p

Publication Date:

2011

Conference:

Transportation Research Board 90th Annual Meeting

Location: Washington DC, United States
Date: 2011-1-23 to 2011-1-27
Sponsors: Transportation Research Board

Media Type:

DVD

Features:

Figures (2) ; References (9) ; Tables (1)

Identifier Terms:

Google Transit

Subject Areas:

Data and Information Technology; Public Transportation

Source Data:

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2011 Paper #11-2254

Files:

TRIS, TRB

Created Date:

Feb 17 2011 6:07PM