Performance Evaluation of Transit Data Formats on a Mobile Device

Over the last decade mobile devices have changed how transportation information is accessed. However, many past data formats used in information services have been designed without the processing and energy constraints of mobile devices in mind. Newer standards, such as the Service Interface for Real-time Information (SIRI) v2.0, are including mobile-friendly features that reduce the processing overhead on mobile devices. Coupled with the advances in mobile device processing capabilities, many believe that performance is no longer an issue of concern in modern mobile phones. This paper presents an evaluation of the SIRI data format on a mobile device, which indicates that not only is performance still an issue, but that app developers should carefully consider certain software design choices to avoid exposing mobile users to extensive wait times (e.g., wait for real-time transit arrival information). The results also demonstrate that information service providers should always offer mobile-friendly interfaces (i.e., RESTful web services with JSON encoding) when possible. The benchmarking software is made available as an open-source application so that others can perform their own experiments, and so that app developers can use this library as a foundation for building new applications based on the SIRI format.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AHB15 Intelligent Transportation Systems.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Barbeau, Sean J
  • Saloranta, Tatu
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 93rd Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC
  • Date: 2014-1-12 to 2014-1-16
• Date: 2014

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References;
• Pagination: 17p
• Monograph Title: TRB 93rd Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Accessibility; Cellular telephones; Data collection; Information processing; Mobile telephones; Real time information; Smartphones; Software; Traveler information and communication systems
• Identifier Terms: Service Interface for Real-time Information
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Operations and Traffic Management; Safety and Human Factors; Transportation (General); I70: Traffic and Transport; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01520355
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 14-4579
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Mar 27 2014 3:38PM