Continue reading »]]> Webinar Date: Thursday, May 31, 2012, 1:00 PM ET

Webinar Description:

This free, Transit GIS Clearinghouse webinar will tell the story of the Portland Regional Trip Planner, the first fully open-source, multimodal trip itinerary planning application to be released by a U.S. transit agency. Officially unveiled by TriMet in October 2011, the launch followed an unprecedented three-year partnership between the agency and the open-source software development community that established the OpenTripPlanner project, an international effort to create a comprehensive multimodal trip planning platform. OTP leverages emerging open data standards and sources such as OpenStreetMap the General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS), and the Portland experience offers an excellent case study in how an agency can help drive open data innovation.

The webinar will be led by David Emory and Kevin Webb of OpenPlans, a non-profit technology organization that helped facilitate the partnership between TriMet and the open source community, and Bibiana McHugh, IT Manager of Geographic Information Systems and Location-Based Services for TriMet.

Also, the webinar will be moderated by Martin Catala and Amber Reep, Transit GIS Clearinghouse Co-Chairs.

Webinar Presenters:

David Emory - Technology and Urban Planning

David brings professional experience in both technology and urban planning to OpenPlans, where he is helping to guide development of the OpenTripPlanner project. Previously, he worked for the Atlanta Regional Commission, where he supported the transit policy and coordination effort for a 20-county area. At OpenPlans Transportation, he will serve as a bridge between the development side of OpenTripPlanner and its growing community of users in the transportation field.

David received a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Brown University and a Master’s in City and Regional Planning from Georgia Tech. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners.

Kevin Webb – Mapping and Trip Planning

Kevin builds mapping and trip planning tools to help keep users informed about their transportation options. He has a long-time interest in planning, transit and open government. He joined OpenPlans by way of the Sunlight Foundation. Much of his career has been in early-stage research and development, including a software startup and several years as a partner in an industrial design consultancy.

Kevin has a BA in environmental and urban studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Bibiana McHugh - IT Manager of Geographic Information Systems  and Location-Based Services

Bibiana has worked in TriMet’s Information Technology Department since 1997 and currently leads a team of innovative web developers and analysts as the IT Manager of Geographic Information Systems and Location-Based Services. She leads several open data and open source software initiatives including opentripplanner.org, maps.trimet.org, rtp.trimet.org, developer.trimet.org, trimet.org/apps.After initiating collaboration with Google for the first release of Google Transit, she helped pioneer the now worldwide standard General Transit Feed Spec (GTFS).

Bibiana received her degree in Geography from the University of Kansas.

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Continue reading »]]> Walk Score is a website which encourages apartment finders to find more walkable, livable communities. Recently, Walk Score unveiled its first nationwide evaluation of U.S. city transit systems that ranks each locality’s access to public transportation. The rankings are based on the Transit Score, a GIS-based calculation that is an ancillary feature to an agency’s walkability ranking. New York, San Fransisco, Boston, Washington and Philadelphia have the highest Transit Scores. Below are the top 25 cities, with the Transit Score listed next to the city:

1. New York – 81
2. San Francisco – 80
3. Boston – 74
4. Washington, DC – 69
5. Philadelphia – 68
6. Chicago – 65
7. Seattle – 59
8. Miami – 57
9. Baltimore – 57
10. Portland – 50
11. Los Angeles – 49
12. Milwaukee – 49
13. Denver – 47
14. Cleveland – 45
15. San Jose – 40
16. Dallas – 39
17. Houston – 36
18. San Diego – 36
19. San Antonio – 35
20. Kansas City – 34
21. Austin – 33
22. Sacramento – 32
23. Las Vegas – 32
24. Columbus – 29
25. Raleigh – 23

The data used by Transit Score are released in an open source format by agencies, thus highlighting open data’s utility in providing performance or benchmark information. More importantly, the trends illustrated in the rankings also reinforce the need for more public transportation considering its impact on livability.

For the full article, please click here

Continue reading »]]> FDOT is sponsoring the National Transit Database (NTD) Data Collection and Reporting Seminar from July 16-18, 2012.

Seminar Time: 8.30 am – 2.30pm

Seminar Location:

LYNX, 455 N. Garland Ave., Orlando, Florida 32801

Attendees:

The seminar is intended for anyone who is affiliated with a Florida public agency who is responsible for urban data reporting, statistical compilation, or other financial duties and activities related to the NTD.

Topics:

• “Who” reports and “What” to report
• 2012 report year updates
• Collection & compilation of required data
• The six standard NTD reporting modules
• Safety & Security reporting on July 18
• The NTD reporting website

For further information and registration please click here.

Continue reading »]]> On Friday, April 27, 2012, staff from the Federal Highway Administration, Federal Transit Administration, Census Bureau and others hosted a 2-hour webinar regarding the recent Census Bureau release of new Urbanized Areas and Urban Clusters. The webinar, Boundary Issues and Transportation, covers various transportation-related boundary issues, how they interact with federal programs, and the necessary steps that state and local agencies need to take to fulfill boundary-related requirements In addition, there is discussion regarding the implication Urbanized Areas have on MPOs, TMAs, Transit and Functional classes.

A full recording of the webinar is available at this link: https://connectdot.connectsolutions.com/p1dnv5104an/.

Continue reading »]]>

Source: http://www.theurbn.com

Published by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, What Your Neighborhood Says about Your Health acknowledges the link between health and livable neighborhoods. Researchers utilizing a GIS find that increased accessibility to food outlets and opportunities to be more physically active have greater impacts on a community’s health, and promotes livability.

People with lower income tend to opt for inexpensive foods offered by vendors at a low cost: such foods are high in fats and increase the chance of obesity. Coincidentally, an effort to establish supermarkets offering quality food services is a  challenge to local governments because  of lack of consumer demand. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimates that 25 million people are living in these so-called food deserts, without access to quality food provisions. In response to this, communities are establishing farmers markets, offering fresh products at a reduced cost, and promoting walkable communities by implementing smart growth plans reflective of the relationship between livable neighborhoods and quality of life.

For the full article, please click here.

Continue reading »]]> Webinar Date: Thursday, April 19, 2012  2:30 PM ET

Webinar Description: Smartphones with built-in GPS provide an opportunity for major changes in travel surveys. GPS or combinations with other location-based technologies such as Wi-Fi, cell tower triangulation, and Bluetooth offer opportunities to experiment with approaches to collect  travel and activity behavior over longer periods of time, to combine these data with attitudinal or stated preference surveys, and to use measured behavior as a feedback mechanism for influencing behavior. Some recent approaches have included passive data collection combined with prompted web-response, with inferred travel mode and trip purpose. Another approach has been to design an active data collection where respondents enter information for each trip or based on a “random moments” approach.

Webinar Moderators:

Guy Rousseau – Atlanta Regional Commission, and Chair of ABJ40 Travel Survey Methods

Elaine Murakami – FHWA Office of Planning, Co-Chair of the ABJ40 New Technology Subcommittee

Webinar  Presentors:

Sandra Rodriguez – PTV NuStats. Smartphone app for the Oregon Travel And Activity Survey (OTAS)

Jerry Jariyasunant and Raja Sengupta – UC Berkeley. The Quantified Traveler. Using personal travel data to promote sustainable transport behavior.

Cy Smith – CEO and Founder, AirSage. Location Intelligence from Cellular Signaling Data Powering Transportation Planning

Webinar Attendence: Participation do not require pre-registration, however there are only 100 connections available.  The session will also be recorded and made available  www.tmiponline.org.

Please access the webinar using the following information:

Conference Number: 1-888-675-2535
Participant Code: 8344566

Event URL:http://fhwa.adobeconnect.com/tmipvirtualseminars/

For further information, please click here.

Continue reading »]]>

Source: http://www.railstotrails.org

Active Transportation Beyond Urban Centers, a research report prepared by Rails-to Trails Conservancy, suggests that in coming years, active transportation can play a bigger role in making rural America more attractive for young families and business investment – improving economic vitality, public safety and overall health of Americans.

So far, biking and walking have been long assumed as a “big city” phenomenon. Further, decision-makers assume that rural Americans can not benefit  from bicyling and pedestrian infrastrcture. Recent data from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) reveal that an active transportation-human-powered mobility, including biking and walking, count as significant means of transportation all across the countryside.

Creating opportunities for walking and biking for rural Americans also provides economic relief from higher gas prices.Therefore, active transportation is a creative, simple solution to address multiple challenges.This report also recommends that federal investment in active transportation infrastucture is necessary to a balanced transportation system that meets the need of all Americans.

For further reading, please click here.

Continue reading »]]> Webinar Date: Tuesday, April 10, 2012, 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM ET

Webinar Description:

The result of demographic changes and the growing use of mobile phones has compelled transit agencies to disseminate information through new media. The emergence of new technologies has also prompted the provision of real-time data, providing customer’s with valuable information on stationary or moving vehicles that can improve their transit experience. Nevertheless, the impact of  of the technology explosion is making it difficult for agencies to keep abreast of new devices and requirements, as well as in-house customer data provision. This webinar will address lessons learned from the dissemination of real-time transit information on mobile devices, as well as the current state of practice in deploying such technology.

Webinar Objectives: (Taken from USDOT RITA website)

• Enhance participants’ knowledge of the use of mobile devices to provide transit information
• Describe the five “dimensions” necessary to deploy information on mobile devices
• Describe the results of the questionnaire, and case studies from TriMet, BART, LeeTran and Transport for London
• Discuss best practices used by agencies to provide information on mobile devices

Webinar Host:

David W.Jackson – US DOT RITA Volpe Center

Mr. Jackson has 18 years of experience in program and policy analysis as well as project evalaution concentrating on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), transit technology applications, and Management and Operations (M & O) efforts at state and local levels of goverment , including performance-based transit and public lands operations. Currently, he manages the US DOT ITS Joint Program Office’s (ITS JPO) ITS Professional Capacity Building (PCB) Program Volpe team.

Webinar Presenters:

Carol Schweiger – TransSystems

Ms. Schweiger  has 32 years of expereince in transportation consulting, and is currently leading TrasnSystems’ ITS business area. She is also a nationally and internationally recognized consultant, author of guidance research reports on transit customer information systems. Ms. Schweiger’s recent report, Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Synthesis 91- Use and Deployment of mobile Device Technology for Real-Time Transit Information, was the impetus for the White House Roundtable on Real-Time Transit Applications. She has assisted over 35 transit agencies throughout the U.S. in planning, procuring,deploying, and evaluating their ITS systems.

Mike Horsting – Regional Transportation Authority

Mr.Horsting works as a Principal Analyst with the Regional Transportation Authority in Chicago. He was Prinicipal Planner with Lee County for 9 and a half years. Moreover, Mr. Horsting has directed, managed and evaluated the Transit Planning and Engineering departments and its consultants at LeeTran.

Tim Moore – Bay Area Rapid Transit

Mr.Moore has led San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District ‘s (BART) early use of mobile, messaging, social and location-based services. He currently oversees interactive services for BART. Mr. Moore’s work has appeared in several publications, and has gamered numerous awards. He is also a frequent speaker on interactive strategy and innovation, open data, mobile services and social engagement.

For connection information, please click here.

Continue reading »]]>

Source: http://www.typepad.com

Prospering in Place, a report prepared by The Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT), emphasizes investment in places with the best chance of success through linking jobs, development, and transit to spur Chicago’s economy. Chicago is the third largest urban area in the country, and operates the second most extensive public transport system. During 2002-2008 in Northern Illinois, the number of jobs paying less than $40,000 located within half a mile of transit declined by 16 percent.

 Also, highly skilled “Knowledge Workers” have shown to have among the highest transit ridership rates for their commutes. However, the jobs near transit areas have declined by 19,469. This illustrates the growing divide between people, jobs and transit is on the increase, and has become a threat to the Chicago’s economy. Therefore, the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) unanimously supported the GoTo 2040 plan- a comprehensive development plan which reduces unnecessary transports costs. The plan aims at compact development along the regions corridors, more easily assessing jobs, building wealth, and providing greater options for transit. However, GoTo 2040 focuses on economic development in terms of clusters and workforce but do not specify a region.

Prospering in Place analyzes GoTo 2040 and other economic development plans by making explicit how better spatial efficiency can promote economic growth. It also identifies specific communities, metro stations, the intermodal rail yards and industrial areas that can create greater value, strengthen the regional economy and produce a larger number of jobs. In addition, quantitative and qualitative analyses are used in Prospering in Places to identify the specific region that can enhance economic development, and it concludes with key recommendations.

For the full article, please click here.

Continue reading »]]>

GAO Report 11-290 underscores the importance of data provision in contributing to better decision-making. More specifically, the article highlights the data gaps responsible for limitations in benefit or cost forecasting that can further impede decision makers’ attempts to forecast transit demand. Models that lack the necessary data to predict ridership are fruitless attempts at making such analyses. The availability of a common data source is also important in maintaining accurate and consistent analyses, so projects can be readily compared to each other.

Geographic Information System (GIS) tools can assist in organizing and facilitating data sharing, thus promoting better decision-making. And by utilizing a standardized data format, a GIS allays concerns about system interoperability, and can have positive effects through the use of data benchmarking. Open data sharing can allow transit agencies to take advantage of beneficial practices implemented elsewhere.

In lieu of the GIS component to the open data sharing initiative, the Transit GIS Clearinghouse is in a key position to be a galvanizing force through which webinars and other tools that facilitate decision-making for agencies can be provided.

For the entire GAO report, please click here.