Real-Time Benefits: How One Small Agency Made a Big Impact with ITS and Real-Time Passenger Information
Ann Derby, Jan Kijowski · Mass transit · 2011
In 2002 the Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District (MTD) installed a computer-aided dispatch/automatic vehicle location system to provide real time bus location information to both their riders and their dispatch center, which has since been renamed the Control Center. Having previously relied on drivers to radio in their status, the Control Center can now act proactively to get the buses back on schedule or dispatch rescue vehicles. In 2010 MDT’s STOPwatch real time information system received an average of 58,117 passenger text queries each month. Information requests from all sources can average nearly 35,000 per hour. Passengers have become reliant on the service and feedback is overwhelmingly positive.