Internet Applications for Paratransit Performance Analysis: The Winston-Salem Case Study

Abstract

Advanced technologies are utilized to improve transportation systems under the aegis of Intelligent Transportation Systems. In such cases, performance measures, which consist of a set of productivity and service indicators, help decisions about transportation resources, their use and allocation.

This study focuses on the paratransit system at the Winston-Salem Transit Authority (WSTA) for development of an application for retrieving and evaluating paratransit performance data. The study demonstrates the use of Internet connectivity for easy-to-use applications with graphics capabilities, and statistical testing for before-after analysis of the data.

An important result of this work is the prototype development and demonstration of Internet based application for analysis of paratransit productivity data. The application was then used to evaluate the impact of incoming technologies like Interactive Voice Response (IVR) on the performance measures. Using automatic telephone technology, IVR, allows transit customers to use their home telephone to book and cancel transit trips. While IVR technology has the primary objective of improving customer satisfaction via improved communication, the case study showed that the IVR could have secondary impacts on productivity such as increased cancellations. With the exception of cancellations, all the measures did not show significant changes with the addition of IVR technology and several policy changes