Diewald, Frost and Bamberg – ASSESSMENT OF TRANSIT PASSENGER INFORMATION SYSTEMS 1983

Description

This 1983 UMTA assessment reviews transit telephone information systems (TIS), defining functions, components (telephony, ACD/PABX, microfiche, computers, VDTs, information agents) and four system types: manual, microfiche-assisted, computer-assisted manual, and fully automated. Key performance measures include calls/hour/day, time per call, retrieval time, lost-call rates, queue metrics, labor productivity, reliability, and cost. Empirical findings show manual-agent productivity around 20 calls/hour, lost-call rates of 10–43%, and per-call costs $0.12–$1.00 (mean ≈$0.40). Three case studies illustrate trade-offs: Nashville’s manual center ($0.30–$0.37/call), WMATA’s computer-assisted AIDS (capital ≈$1.26M; $0.72–$0.78/call), and Hamburg’s automated AFI (scalable, handled ~1,000 calls/day, improved off-peak ridership but faced auxiliary-machine and speech-quality issues). Other implementations (Telerider, Minneapolis) showed ridership and perception gains. The report concludes TISs are essential marketing/operational tools that complement other technologies, but calls for further R&D on technology trade-offs, call-value metrics, and cost-effective system designs.