Project Name:

Project Details: SWART IT Upgrades

Description:

Upgrades to Information Technology systems for Southwest Area Regional Transit (SWART). Includes scheduling system updates, enhanced interfaces to medical transportation program clearinghouse, fare collection system, maintenance system, closed-circuit te

Status:

Planned

Timeframe:

Short

Geographic Scope:

Entire SWART district

Service Scope

Transit Management

Stakeholders:

Service Packages:

Project Inventory:

On-board Paratransit Operations

• The transit vehicle shall manage data input to sensor(s) on-board a transit vehicle to determine the vehicle's availability for use in demand responsive and flexible-route transit services based on identity, type, and passenger capacity.
• The transit vehicle shall receive the status of demand responsive or flexible-route transit schedules and passenger loading from the transit vehicle operator.
• The transit vehicle shall provide the transit vehicle operator instructions about the demand responsive or flexible-route transit schedule that has been confirmed from the center.
• The transit vehicle shall provide the capability to log passenger boardings and alightings and make passenger use data available to the transit center.

On-board Schedule Management

• The transit vehicle shall receive a vehicle assignment including transit route information, transit service instructions, traffic information, road conditions, and other information for the operator.
• The transit vehicle shall use the route information and its current location to determine the deviation from the predetermined schedule.
• The transit vehicle shall calculate the estimated times of arrival (ETA) at transit stops.
• The transit vehicle shall determine scenarios to correct the schedule deviation.
• The transit vehicle shall provide the schedule deviations and instructions for schedule corrections to the transit vehicle operator if the deviation is small, or the transit vehicle is operating in an urban area.
• The transit vehicle shall send the schedule deviation and estimated arrival time information to the center.
• The transit vehicle shall support the operations of a flexible route service. This may include requests for route deviations that would then lead to schedule corrective actions.
• The transit vehicle shall notify the transit center of vehicle location and operational status as the vehicle exits and returns to the transit facility to support future vehicle assignments.

On-board Transit Fare Management

• The transit vehicle shall read data from the traveler card / payment instrument presented by boarding passengers.
• The transit vehicle shall provide an image of all travelers which shall be used for violation processing of those who do not have a traveler card / payment instrument or whose transit fare transaction fails.
• The transit vehicle shall determine the traveler's travel routing based on the transit vehicle's current location and the traveler's destination.
• The transit vehicle shall calculate the traveler's fare based on the origin and destination provided by the traveler as well as factors such as the transit routing, transit fare category, traveler history, and route-specific information.
• The transit vehicle shall have access to the complete range of transit services (routes and schedules) that are available to the traveler.
• The transit vehicle shall provide a transit fare payment interface that is suitable for travelers with physical disabilities.
• The transit vehicle shall include a database on-board the transit vehicle for use in fare processing from which the fares for all possible trips within the transit operational network can be determined.
• The transit vehicle shall support an emergency fare structure overriding all other fares that can be activated during disasters, states of emergency or evacuations.
• The transit vehicle shall support the support advanced payments for tolls, and/or parking lot charges, and/or transit fares via the traveler card / payment instrument.
• The transit vehicle shall provide fare statistics data to the center.

On-board Transit Security

• The transit vehicle shall perform video and audio surveillance inside of transit vehicles and output raw video or audio data for either local monitoring (for processing or direct output to the transit vehicle operator), remote monitoring or for local storage (e.g., in an event recorder).
• The transit vehicle shall perform local monitoring of video or audio surveillance data collected inside of transit vehicles, and identify potential incidents or threats based on received processing parameters.
• The transit vehicle shall output an indication of potential incidents or threats and the processed video or audio information to the center along with the vehicle’s current location.
• The transit vehicle shall detect potential threats via sensors for chemical agents, toxic industrial chemicals, biological agents, explosives, and radiation.
• The transit vehicle shall detect potential threats via object detection sensors (e.g. metal detectors).
• The transit vehicle shall output an indication of potential incidents or threats and the processed sensor information to the center along with the vehicle’s current location.
• The transit vehicle shall accept sensor control data to allow remote control of the sensors.
• The transit vehicle shall monitor and output surveillance and sensor equipment status and fault indications.
• The transit vehicle shall accept emergency inputs from either the transit vehicle operator or a traveler through such interfaces as panic buttons, silent or audible alarms, etc.
• The transit vehicle shall output reported emergencies to the center.
• The transit vehicle shall receive acknowledgments of the emergency request from the center and output this acknowledgment to the transit vehicle operator or to the travelers.
• The transit vehicle shall be capable of receiving an emergency message for broadcast to the travelers or to the transit vehicle operator.
• The transit vehicle shall be capable of disabling or enabling the transit vehicle based on commands from the center or authentic inputs from the transit vehicle operator.
• The transit vehicle shall perform authentication of the transit vehicle operator.

On-board Transit Trip Monitoring

• The transit vehicle shall track the current location of the transit vehicle.
• The transit vehicle shall support the computation of the location of a transit vehicle using on-board sensors to augment the location determination function. This may include proximity to the transit stops or other known reference points as well as recording trip length.
• The transit vehicle shall record transit trip monitoring data including vehicle mileage and fuel usage.
• The transit vehicle shall record transit trip monitoring data including operational status information such as doors open/closed, running times, etc.
• The transit vehicle shall send the transit vehicle trip monitoring data to center-based trip monitoring functions.

Transit Center Fare Management

• The center shall manage the actual value of transit fares for each segment of each regular transit route, including the transmission of the information to transit vehicles and transit stops or stations.
• The center shall provide the capability for a system operator to manage the transit fares and control the exchange of transit fare information.
• The center shall process the financial requests from the transit vehicles or roadside and manage an interface to a Financial Institution.
• The center shall support the payment of transit fare transactions using data provided by the traveler cards / payment instruments.
• The center shall collect data on fare payment violations and send the data, including images of the violator, to the appropriate enforcement agency.
• The center shall process requests for transit fares to be paid in advance.
• The center shall be capable of establishing emergency fare structures to override all other fares during disasters, states of emergency, or evacuations.
• The center shall maintain a list of invalid traveler credit identities or bad tag lists that can be forwarded to transit vehicles and transit stops or stations.
• The center shall collect fare statistics data to implement variable and flexible fare structures.
• The center shall exchange fare and load information with other transit management centers, including potential Centralized Payments facilities.
• The center shall provide transit fare information to other centers, including traveler information providers upon request.

Transit Center Fixed-Route Operations

• The center shall generate transit routes and schedules based on such factors as parameters input by the system operator, road network conditions, incident information, operational data on current routes and schedules, and digitized map data.
• The center shall provide the interface to the system operator to control the generation of new routes and schedules (transit services) including the ability to review and update the parameters used by the routes and schedules generation processes and to initiate these processes
• The center shall be able to generate special routes and schedules to support an incident, disaster, evacuation, or other emergency.
• The center shall dispatch fixed route or flexible route transit vehicles
• The center shall collect transit operational data for use in the generation of routes and schedules.
• The center shall provide instructions or corrective actions to the transit vehicle operators based upon operational needs.
• The center shall manage large deviations of individual transit vehicles, deviations in rural areas, and deviations of large numbers of vehicles.
• The center shall generate the necessary corrective actions which may involve more than the vehicles concerned and more far reaching action, such as, the introduction of extra vehicles, wide area signal priority by traffic management, the premature termination of some services, etc.
• The center shall exchange information with Maintenance and Construction Operations concerning work zones, roadway conditions, asset restrictions, work plans, etc.
• The center shall disseminate up-to-date schedules and route information to other centers for fixed and flexible route services.
• The center shall provide an interface to the archive data repository to enable the operator to retrieve historical operating data for use in planning transit routes and schedules.

Transit Center Multi-Modal Coordination

• The center shall coordinate schedules and services between transit agencies, traffic management, maintenance and construction operations, parking management, and other surface or air transportation modes.
• The center shall share transfer cluster and transfer point information with multimodal transportation service providers, other transit agencies, and traveler information service providers. A transfer cluster is a collection of stop points, stations, or terminals where transfers can be made conveniently.
• The center shall accept requests from traffic management to change routes and schedules as part of the implementation of demand management strategies.
• The center shall coordinate transit services for special events, planning services for the event and managing transit services on the day of the event.
• The center shall provide transit operations personnel with the capability to control and monitor transit service coordination activities.

Transit Center Paratransit Operations

• The center shall disseminate up-to-date schedules and route information to other centers for demand responsive transit services (paratransit).
• The center shall collect the log of passenger boardings and alightings from the paratransit vehicles.
• The center shall process trip requests for demand responsive transit services, i.e. paratransit. Sources of the requests may include traveler information service providers.
• The center shall monitor the operational status of the demand response vehicles including status of passenger pick-up and drop-off.
• The center shall generate demand response transit (including paratransit) routes and schedules based on such factors as parameters input by the system operator, what other demand responsive transit schedules have been planned, the availability and location of vehicles, the relevance of any fixed transit routes and schedules, road network information, and incident information.
• The center shall dispatch demand response (paratransit) transit vehicles.
• The center shall exchange information with Maintenance and Construction Operations concerning work zones, roadway conditions, asset restrictions, work plans, etc.

Transit Center Security

• The center shall monitor transit vehicle operational data to determine if the transit vehicle is off-route and assess whether a security incident is occurring.
• The center shall receive reports of emergencies on-board transit vehicles entered directly be the transit vehicle operator or from a traveler through interfaces such as panic buttons or alarm switches.
• The center shall support the back-office portion of functionality to authenticate transit vehicle operators.
• The center shall exchange transit incident information along with other service data with other transit agencies.
• The center shall receive information pertaining to a wide-area alert such as weather alerts, disaster situations, or child abductions. This information may come from Emergency Management or from other Alerting and Advisory Systems.
• The center shall send wide-area alert information to travelers (on-board transit vehicles or at stations/stops) and transit vehicle operators.
• The center shall coordinate the response to security incidents involving transit with other agencies including Emergency Management, other transit agencies, media, traffic management, and traveler information service providers.
• The center shall receive threat information and status on the integrity of the transit infrastructure.
• The center shall provide support to remotely disable (or reset the disabling of) a transit vehicle in service.

Transit Center Vehicle Tracking

• The center shall monitor the locations of all transit vehicles within its network.
• The center shall determine adherence of transit vehicles to their assigned schedule.
• The center shall support an interface with a map update provider, or other appropriate data sources, through which updates of digitized map data can be obtained and used as a background for transit tracking and dispatch.
• The center shall provide transit operational data to traveler information service providers.
• The center shall provide collected transit probe data to traffic management centers and traveler information service providers for use in measuring current traffic conditions.

Transit Vehicle Operator Assignment

• The center shall maintain records of a transit vehicle operator's performance. This may be done utilizing standardized performance evaluation criteria set forth by governmental regulations and transit operating company policies, assessing the transit vehicle operator's driving history, and assessing comments from the transit vehicle operator's supervisor(s) as well as noting any moving violations or accidents, supervisor comments, government regulations, and company policies.
• The center shall assess the transit vehicle operator's availability based on previous work assignments, accumulated hours, plus health and vacation commitments.
• The center shall assign transit vehicle operators to transit schedules based on their eligibility, route preferences, seniority, and transit vehicle availability.
• The center shall provide an interface through which the transit vehicle operator information can be maintained - either from the transit vehicle operator, center personnel, or other functions.
• The center shall generate supplemental vehicle operator assignments as required due to change events that occur during the operating day.