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https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/27432/critical-issues-in-transportation-for-2024-and-beyond

An assessment of the effects and cost-effectiveness of a public transport journey planner

Joukkoliikenteen internet-reittineuvontapalvelun vaikutusten ja kannattavuuden arviointi

The Helsinki Metropolitan Area Council (YTV) launched a door-to-door internet journey planner service in November 2001. The service is also available as chargeable mobile phone service. The project evaluation started after one year of usage. The aim of this work was to study the use of the service and its effects on the acquisition of public transport information and on public transport usage. The effects were assessed from the viewpoints of socio-economical benefits and the development of information society. An important part of the work was to evaluate the technical implementation and the marketing efforts in order to guide future development. The opinions and experiences of the users were studied with an internet-survey. In addition a phone interview was directed randomly to metropolitan area citizens. It was used to evaluate the conspicuousness and usage of the service within different groups. The results were also used to correct the potentially biased sample of the internet survey. Also the collected user feedback, log files and statistics were analyzed and key personnel of the developer and YTV were interviewed. According to the analysis the service has been planned and implemented very successfully. The service has over 10 000 daily users and almost one third of the area's citizens have used it. The service makes it easier to plan trips by enhancing the usability of public transport information. Over 20% of the users have found faster routes with the help of the service. It has also increased the acquisition of public transport information, made transfers easier and shortened the time margins used by the travelers. Some users have reported that they are using public transport more often because of the service. The users value the service very highly and its calculated benefits are, even with a cautious estimates, more than ten times larger than the cost of the development and upkeep of the service. In addition to these quantified benefits the service has reduced the use of YTV's call center service and other traditional timetable sources, enhanced the public image of YTV's organization and area's public transport and enabled a remarkable development work after which an internationally competitive software product has been brought to the market. During the evaluation work several development proposals have been brought up, some of which will be implemented during 2003 and some possibly in the longer run. One future focus for development is the marketing of the product, since according to the study 36% of the active users of public transport have not yet heard about the service. This report is available at http://www.vtt.fi/rte/projects/fits/ or http://www.mintc.fi

Language

  • Finnish

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Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 01015286
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Source Agency: TRL
  • ISBN: 951-723-883-5
  • Files: ITRD
  • Created Date: Jan 12 2006 8:56AM