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22 CHAPTER FOUR GENERAL CASE STUDIES SURVEY RESULTS INTRODUCTION To balance the findings of the 2002 and 2003 transit GIS surveys, which collected information from mainly small- and medium-sized transit agencies, case studies were con- ducted with the following large transit agencies: ⢠⢠⢠⢠⢠Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), King County Metro Transit, MiamiâDade Transit (MDT), New Jersey Transit (NJ Transit), and TriMet (Portland, Oregon). The five case study sites are considered a representative sample of large transit operators in the United States. They are also known to have active GIS programs, including some innovative projects, which makes them attractive case studies to discover leading edge examples of the use of GIS. The case studies were conducted on site with the GIS program managers and other staff (technical and manage- rial), preceded by a questionnaire to gather some basic in- formation on the agency and its GIS programs. The format of the questionnaire followed a format similar to the 2002 and 2003 GIS surveys with some minor modifications, which allows for comparison with the small- and medium- sized transit agencies. This chapter begins with a summary of the results of the survey that provides an overview of the status of their GIS programs. These findings are then compared with the re- sults of the 2002 and 2003 surveys and some general con- clusions are drawn on the implementation of GIS programs in different sized agencies. This is followed by the five case studies, which provide additional information that is used to evaluate the state of the practice in leading edge agen- cies. SYNTHESIS CASE STUDIES The survey gathered information on GIS services, applica- tions, data (including data sources, digital centerline files, and images), use of related technologies such as GPS, us- ers within the organizations, and how the GIS program is managed. A copy of the questionnaire is included in Ap- pendix A. The findings are presented here. Agency Size and Service Area The case study agencies are among the largest and most complex in the United States, offering rail, light-rail, and paratransit services in addition to the traditional bus ser- vices, as shown by the data in Tables 4 and 5. The data show the extent of their operations and the number of tran- sit features that they have to manage including bus routes, bus stops, and vehicles. Current GIS Programs The case study agencies are all major users of GIS in a wide variety of business applications (Table 6). There is an example of GIS use in nearly all application areas with the exception of kiosk-based itinerary planning, smart cards for transit passenger data collection, and counterterrorism. Itâs not surprising that kiosk-based applications are not mentioned, as these have been superseded somewhat by the Internet. The most popular uses of GIS are in service plan- ning, map production, market analysis, paratransit schedul- ing and dispatch, ADA compliance, Title VI programs, and AVL applications. There is a move away from traditional areas into new applications in operations and trip planning. Comparing the results to the small- and medium-sized TABLE 4 GENERAL INFORMATION ON CASE STUDY AGENCIESâ SIZE AND SERVICE AREA Agency No. of Counties in Service Area No. of Cities in Service Area Service Area (square miles) Service Area Population TriMet 3 27 574 1,300,000 King County Metro Transit 1 39 2,128 1,800,000 NJ Transit 28 NJ statewide, New York City, Philadelphia, Wilmington, some surrounding counties in NY and PA 7,500 8,400,000 MiamiâDade Transit 1 33 285 2,200,000 Chicago Transit Authority 1 43 275 3,403,415
23 TABLE 5 TRANSIT OPERATING STATISTICS OF CASE STUDY AGENCIES Agency Size of Fixed-Route Bus Fleet Annual Revenue Vehicle Miles (millions) No. of Routes No. of Stops Annual Passenger Trips (millions) Size of Paratransit Bus Fleet Size of Rail/Light- Rail Fleet TriMet 655 23.8 bus 3.2 rail 100 8,100 88.9 203 78 King County Metro Transit 1,203 42.5 232 9,596 95.3 287 0 NJ Transit 2,027 66.8 274 bus 12 commuter rail 3 light rail 17,000 138.9 bus 192 711 45 LRV MiamiâDade Transit 792 31.7 93 8,800 85.6 N/A 148 Chicago Transit Authority 2,000 N/A 148 12,463 457.2 N/A 1,190 Notes: N/A = not available; LRV = light-rail vehicle. agencies reported in chapter three (Tables 1â3), the uses of GIS are similar, albeit in the larger agencies there is more use of GIS generally, which is to be expected given their size and operational capacity. Interestingly, when asked about their future uses of GIS (see Figure 6), the 2003 sur- vey respondents mention those application areas that the larger agencies are pioneering, including interactive trip planning, AVL, and police operations. Transit agencies are realizing that these application areas are critical and new technologies enable their development even in small- and medium-size agencies. One area where agencies differ is in their use of contrac- tors to assist in the GIS programs. There are notable differ- ences in the areas of applications development (Figure 7) and training (Figure 8). Some agencies prefer to internalize TABLE 6 CASE STUDIES: GIS APPLICATION AREAS Application TriMet King County Transit NJ Transit MiamiâDade Transit Chicago Transit Authority Service Planning x x x x x Market Analysis x x x x Map Production Design and Publishing x x x x x Fixed-Route Scheduling x x Interactive Itinerary Travel x x Kiosk based Internet based x x x Ride Matching x x Transit Pass Use x Turnstile/platform data collection x Onboard vehicle data collection with GPS x x x APC x x x x Smart card Display of AVL x x x x Real-Time Bus Display x x Paratransit Scheduling and Dispatching x x x x Real Estate Asset Management x x Police Operations Security x x Criminal investigation x x Counterterrorism Accident incident reconstruction x x x ADA Compliance x x x x x Title VI of Civil Rights Act x x x x Welfare to Work x x Human Services x New Starts Supporting Land Criteria x x x Other (specify) Real-time bus display x Notes: APC = automated passenger counting; AVL = automatic vehicle location; ADA = Americans with Disabilities Act.
24 FIGURE 7 Case studies: GIS applications development. F IGURE 8 Case studies: GIS training programs. GIS development, whereas others prefer to use a mix- IS Software he number of software licenses in each agency is listed in Table 7. Most agencies use more than one GIS platform. This is reflective of a trend in nontransit agencies, such as state he survey of larger transit agencies included a question GIS software in the different business reas. This is of interest to GIS managers as these pro- data into all ture of in-house resources and external contractors. In data collection, map production, and technical support/systems integration, the large agencies mostly preferred in-house development over external contractors, with the exception of CTA, which uses a mixture of contractors and in-house staff for data collection and technical support/systems inte- gration. The use of external training is related to the types of training programs; that is, basic user training vis-Ã -vis more specialized GIS programs. Some agencies such as TriMet provide in-house training to their users and use ex- ternal contractors for specialist training. Others, including MDT and CTA, rely much more on external contractors or other agencies to provide training to both users and GIS specialists. G T DOTs and may be attributed to the increasing interoperability of GIS software, thus lessening dependence on a single ven- dor, or that the wider use of GIS in transit agencies means that there is more opportunity to use multiple platforms. Non-GIS Software T on their use of non- a grams are spatial and temporal in nature; however, tradi- tionally they have not included GIS or mapping capabilities. Examples include programs for trip itinerary planning; sched- uling, including paratransit services; ride matching; and AVL applications. A listing of the non-GIS transit software in the five case study sites is shown in Appendix D. Recently, these agencies have been developing their own GIS interfaces or creating routines to export their 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 120% TriMet King County NJ Transit MDT CTA In-house Contractor 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 120% TriMet King County NJ Transit MDT CTA In-house training External training
25 TABLE 7 CASE STUDIES: GIS PLATFORMS AND NUMBER OF L IS Software Tri et Metro ransit NJ T MiamiâDade Transit Chicago Transit ICENSES King County G M T ransit Authority ArcView 3.x 25 20 12 31 ArcView 8.x 25 5 1 31 Arc/Info MapObjects 5 4 4 2 Site license 2 MGE 1 1 ial 1 ArcIMS, ArcSDE Arc E Ge ia MA M CA L Ar E, Ar S MapInfo Autodesk Map 2 2 1 2 Geomedia Intergraph 12 10 TransCAD Oracle Spat 2 12 Other SD omed Web /CO D/AV cSD cIM compatible GIS format such as shapefiles. Even so, the ay the data are specified may still make it difficult to in- ograms om a single vendor, whereas others like to use multiple overcome these problems through data import/export. This is not the ideal approach, and having data in multiple for- treet Centerline Data IS infrastructure is the source and aintenance of the street centerline network. With the ex- and me- ium-sized transit agencies that rely much more on TIGER l TABLE 8 E STUDIES: STREET CENTERLINE DATA Primary Street Other Street Centerline Files Update Cycle Maintained in GIS a w tegrate with the base map or other transit data managed in the GIS. The interviews with the GIS staff revealed some of these frustrations: although GIS software is becoming more open and compatible with data exchange standards, the traditional programs for transit operations remain largely closed and proprietary. The survey revealed only a few vendors in the transit software market for scheduling, paratransit, and trip itinerary planning products. A survey by the Urban Transportation Monitor in 2002 confirms this situation in the North American market (44). There is a similar situation in the AVL marketplace. This dominance of transit software by a small number of companies lowers competition and encourages the continuation of proprietary software and data formats. The transit agencies would pre- fer more open standards that allow for a modular approach to software integration between different products. Some transit agencies prefer to implement pr fr vendors. The areas in which these programs operate over- lap with GIS programs, which is the cause of some of the complexities in converting data between the different for- mats. There is not necessarily a conflict between these pro- grams, and some agencies have worked out procedures to mats inevitably complicates business processes and results in data redundancy and duplication. This issue appears to be a significant barrier to accomplishing enterprise GIS in transit. Standards may address some of these issues; how- ever, this is clearly an issue of concern to transit agencies and could be an area for further research. S A critical piece of the G m ception of NJ Transit, all the other agencies use centerlines created in the public sector and maintained by themselves or in collaboration with public agencies (Table 8). This is a significant contrast with the small- d fi es and other local government sources that are updated much less frequently. One of the noticeable features of the larger agencies is their focus on data accuracy to support operations as well as planning functions. In a large transit agency, bus stop locations and routes can change daily so that the centerline files need to be accurate enough to geo- CAS Agency Centerline File TriMet Reg O Qua rly ional/Portland MP N/A rte Yes King County Metro Transit Tw r Mia ty GDT ER Daily (county) Yes ty) nsit TeleA s (for paratransit) King County N/A Daily Yes NJ Transit MiamiâDade Transit NAVTEQ miâDade Coun , TIG ic eae per y Yes (coun Chicago Tra Authority City/county tla Weekly Yes N ilable; MPO = me ng organiz opologi ated and Geo E nce System; GDT = Geographic Data Technology. otes: N/A = not ava tropolitan planni ation; TIGER = T cally Integr graphic ncoded Refere
26 TABLE 9 C A E T DIES: USE OF REMOTELY SENSED IMAGES S S U gency Aerial Photography Source How Often Is it Level of Accuracy/ Resolution (pixel Cost No. of Images A Purchased? size) T -in., 1, 2, 4,10, and 20 ft 564 sections riMet Eight-bit color variety of formats Regional photo consortium Annually 6 $23/ section orthophoto images, King County Metro Transit As needed 10 Partner Program through state/federal partnership, actual 1 ft pixel >$1 ion >1,000 MiamiâDade Transit maintained Woolpert Biannually 3 in. N/A N/A it y C (col nty City/county, by agreement 1,1 y, 4,486 KC roads ft N/A N/A King County NJ Transit USGSâState USGS 5 yr .5 mill 2002, funded contribution of agency was approximately $75,000 County GIS Chicago Trans ity of Chicago or), Co k Cou 2 yr 6 in. 0 87 cit Authorit o (black and white) county Notes: N/A = not available; ical Survey. ode changes in location and current enough to include emote Sensed Images imilar to the 2002 and 2003 survey results, the case study tomer service, another suggested area for further research. WebâGIS Applications S) in delivering webâGIS ser- ices to internal and external customers (Table 10). This able 11 summarizes the main components of the GIS/IT infrastructure. All the agencies use Windows operating sys- USGS = U.S. Geolog c subdivisions and new developments that opened in the past year. Many agencies are looking forward to real-time data updates of their centerline data. R S agencies make widespread use of satellite images, aerial photographs, and LIDAR images (Table 9). The cost of ac- quiring these images has fallen in the past few years, and GIS software provides better tools for integrating images into their databases. In many cases, the images are ac- quired through a local consortium or in partnership with the county or state. Images are very effective data sources for improving transit data and reviewing the quality of data acquired from other sources. The accuracy, quality, and multispectral scope of the images have improved dramati- cally in the past few years and the current generation of satellites is having a major impact on transportation data sources. There are even experiments to use unmanned ae- rial vehicles that can hover over roads and provide real- time data streams, including images, on traffic conditions and incidents. This is a rich area for research. The increas- ing use of cameras and road sensors to monitor traffic may also have applications in transit, security, and fleet moni- toring. There are some privacy concerns with the deploy- ment of surveillance equipment and there are also concerns about the access to data that might be used by terrorists. These concerns need to be balanced against the benefits of more real-time information in transit management and cus- Somewhat surprising is the relatively low level of use of Internet Map Servers (IM v may be because of some limitations of IMS technology or it may reflect concerns about data security and access through the agencyâs firewall. WebâGIS services were omitted from the 2002 and 2003 surveys; therefore, it is difficult to draw any conclusions from the comparison with small- and medium-sized agencies. Compared with other transportation agencies, such as the state DOTs, transitâs use of webâGIS services appears to be lagging. There are many examples of successful web-based GIS programs for serving maps and geographic data over the Internet, and several deployments allow data editing and analysis in ad- dition to map display and query tools. As mentioned in the literature review, webâGIS is making rapid advances with emerging standards for data exchange. This would appear to be an area ripe for GIS applications such as trip planning and AVL. Some of these applications are present in the case study sites, but presently only at a rudimentary level. The relatively low level of deployment of webâGIS ser- vices may indicate less need to interface with external cus- tomers. It may also reflect some concerns with the capa- bilities of IMS programs, which are still in their early stages of development. IT Infrastructure T
27 TABLE 10 C ASE STUDIES: WEBâGIS SERVICES gency Internal Map Server Software Used to cess GIS Data Used to A cess GIS Applications? Provides Real- Time Bus Map Server for Ext nal Customers A Ac c Location Information er TriMet ArcIMS Yes No Yes Yes King County Metro Transit B transportation NJ Transit Yes Yes Yes (train only) No MiamiâDade Transit No No Yes No Authority uilt by UW engineering department GeoMedia Web ArcIMS Yes No Yes No Chicago Transit ArcIMS 4.0 Yes Yes Yes No N Washington. TABLE 11 CASE STUDIES: IT INFRASTRUCTURE FOR GIS PROGRAM Agency RDBMS Server Operating System Client Operating System ote: UW = University of Agency TriMet Oracle Linux & Unix Windows King County Metro Transit 03 NJ Transit Oracle/Oracle Spatial Windows 2000 Windows 2000 QL server P Oracle Unix TTM64, Windows 20 Windows 2000, XP MiamiâDade Transit Chicago Transit Authority Oracle/S Oracle Windows 2000 Sun OS Windows XP Windows NT/2000/X N l Database Manag ms on the client desktop computers. Windows is also sed on the servers and two agencies, NJ Transit and MDT, man Resources estions on the staffing and budgets for e GIS program (Figure 9). The differences in the level of rely on the central GIS unit. Third, in some cases, transit agency staff can call on GIS support from the county or uirements r an appropriate GIS program. In comparison with the units in the IT department, which allows resources to be ote: RDBMS = Relationa ement System. te u are Windows-only agencies. The others maintain a mixture of Unix and Windows servers, with the exception of TriMet, which has opted to implement Unix and Linux servers. The other major component of the IT infrastruc- ture is the DBMS, and in all five agencies Oracle DBMS is used. Hu The survey asked qu th GIS staffing is less related to agency size and more to op- erating practices. Consequently, the number of dedicated GIS staff is only one indicator of the level of GIS activity in the agency. For example, CTA has a large number of us- ers even though it has a relatively small pool of dedicated GIS staff. With this caveat in mind, some general observa- tions can be made. First, four of the five agencies appear to have a dedicated pool of staff resources to support the GIS program, supplemented by contractors where funding is available. In MiamiâDade County, contractors are used more than in other agencies (see Figures 7 and 8). Second, the role of the GIS staff is changing from providing general support functions (maps and spatial analyses) to providing more specialist programming and applications develop- ment. In some agencies, such as NJ Transit, users are being encouraged to make their own maps and perform their own analyses following some limited GIS training, rather than other local government where these arrangements exist. Otherwise, the GIS units operate independently within the prevailing organizational structure. Further comment on this issue is made in the individual case studies. During the on-site visits, most agencies indicated that there were insufficient resources to support the GIS pro- gram in terms of staffing and the staff skill req fo small- and medium-sized agencies, the large agencies are better staffed, especially if they have access to a larger pool of GIS and IT staff. It should be noted, however, that other than dedicated staff there are many GIS users in transit agencies. Figure 9 shows the range of dedicated GIS staff in the five agencies. Most have a mixture of manager, pro- grammer, analyst, and technician positions, although some of these are shared with IT or other departments. Smaller agencies have difficulty in gathering a broad pool of re- sources, as described earlier in the GIS survey. In their case, they either have to limit their GIS programs or rely more on the users to perform the GIS functions. The user base is growing over time and some functions that were previously undertaken by specialist staff can now be done by users. The GIS staff is more directed toward managing the infrastructure and custom applications development rather than routine functions. There appears to be a trend toward locating the GIS
28 FIGURE 9 Case studies: GIS staff resources. nt of e GIS staff, especially if they are graded as IT profes- onals. There are other opportunities for professional de- he survey included questions on the budgets for the GIS e answers to this question were somewhat mbiguous and in some cases made interpretation difficult. aging the GIS program. At a minimum, they show that op- erating a GIS unit requires a level of resources commensu- rate with its mission, and given the size of some of the GIS al structure becomes more of an issue. This sue appears to cause some anxiety among the GIS man- gers. The general consensus is that moving GIS into the GIS program and for the taff members. This trend is apparent in the case study shared. This can also benefit professional developme th si velopment through partnerships with universities and other agencies in developing GIS programs, pursuing research, and so forth. MDT and CTA have collaborative arrange- ments with universities. These generalizations are subject to a number of caveats that are explored in the individual case studies. GIS Budgets T programs. Th a GIS budgets include staff, contractors, equipment, data, and special projects, which may fall under different pro- grams in each agency, making it difficult to identify all the costs under a single GIS heading. Therefore, the results are estimates based on the responses received. The budgets range from $178,000 to $1,025,000, with an average of from $600,000 to $700,000. The purpose of this question was not so much to compare budgets between agencies but to indicate the level of resources that are typically needed to operate more enterprise GIS programs. The estimates vary somewhat and no doubt reflect the approach to man- programs they may justify being set-up as a separate cost center with their own budgets (this may already be the case in some agencies). This is an area that could benefit from further study. Location Within the Organization As the GIS units develop and grow, their location within the organization is a IT division is a good move for the s agencies (Table 12). GIS programs that remain in planning seem to grow less than those that are part of IT. Perhaps this is because IT has more budget and discretionary spending on IT programs, or possibly because GIS and IT fit together better than GIS and planning. As described in chapter one, GIS is becoming more âISâ and less âG,â and converging with mainstream IT, in which case the integra- tion of GIS in the IT department seems sound. The corol- lary argument is that the emphasis on methods and tech- nology moves GIS away from the domains of transit 0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0 7.0 TriMet King County NJ Transit MDT CTA Transit Agency Total GIS staff GIS manager GIS analyst GIS technician GIS programmer
29 TABLE 12 CASE STUDIES: ORGANIZATIONAL LOCATION F GIS PROGRAM Agency Department O TriMet GIS section in IT division King County Metro Transit Distributed GIS within county NJ Transi MiamiâD t GIS unit within planning d A within IT department ade Transit Information technology ser Transit Authority gy development epartment, DB vices Chicago Data services and technolo N tor. ra ti , u ere are some oncerns that if GIS becomes a back office IT activity it ill evolve into just another information system. Aficiona- capabilities to manage spatial data. Therefore, the dilemma that some of the large transit agencies face is that having grown up and matured, now what do they want to be? This ote: DBA = database administra p c ce s ch as scheduling and planning. Th c w dos of GIS often cite it as being a different type of IT, more strongly rooted in a disciplineâgeographyâwith special is a dilemma shared by other transportation agencies, not just transit.