The participation of a large and varied group of people in the planning process has long been encouraged to increase the effectiveness and acceptability of plans. However, in practice, participation by affected stakeholders has often been limited to small groups, both because of the lack of reach on the part of planners and because of a sense of little or no ownership of the process on the part of citizens. Overcoming these challenges to stakeholder participation is particularly important for any transportation planning process because the success of the system depends primarily on its ability to cater to the requirements and preferences of the people whom the system serves. Crowdsourcing uses the collective wisdom of a crowd to achieve a solution to a problem that affects the crowd. This paper proposes the use of crowdsourcing as a possible mechanism to involve a large group of stakeholders in transportation planning and operations. Multiple case studies show that crowdsourcing was used to collect data from a wide range of stakeholders in transportation projects. Two distinct crowdsourcing usage types are identified: crowdsourcing for collecting normally sparse data on facilities such as bike routes and crowdsourcing for soliciting feedback on transit quality of service and real-time information quality. A final case study exemplifies the use of data quality auditors for ensuring the usability of crowd-sourced data, one of many potential issues in crowdsourcing presented in the paper. These case studies show that crowdsourcing has immense potential to replace or augment traditional ways of collecting data and feedback from a wider group of a transportation system's users without creating an additional financial burden.
When presented in a practical format, real-time transit information can improve sustainable travel methods by enhancing the transit experience. This paper identifies the positive shift realized by the continued development of the OneBusAway set of real-time transit information tools. In addition, the paper analyzes real-time prediction errors and their effects on the rider experience. In 2012, three years after the development of location-aware mobile applications, a survey of current OneBusAway users was conducted to compare the results with the previous 2009 study. Results show significant positive shifts in satisfaction with transit, perceptions of safety, and ridership frequency as a result of the increased use of real-time arrival information. However, this paper also provides a perspective of the margin of error riders come to expect and the negative effects resulting from inaccuracies with the real-time data. Although riders on average will ride less when they have experienced errors, a robust issue-reporting system as well as the resolution of the error can mitigate the initial negative effects. With this understanding, the paper provides transit agencies and developers with guidance to realize the full potential of real-time information and error-reporting systems.
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