BusBuzzard and WideWorld : decreasing the uncertainty of multimodal transportation

Recent research has found that in some cases travel time variance is more important than mean travel time in travel mode choice. This implies shared infrastructure transportation modes prone to service unreliability stand at a disadvantage even if they are on average faster than automobile travel. Real-time status and historical availability statistics gleaned from vehicle instrumentation provide a natural complement to such systems, reducing travel uncertainty without the infrastructural investment normally required to increase reliability. I present two projects that explore the idea that a web-work of data-producing shared infrastructure joined by user-facing traveler information systems comprise an aggregate transportation mode competitive with automobile transit. The first, WideWorld, is a multimodal trip planner incorporating real time bicycle share availability. The second, Bus Buzzard draws on millions of bus GPS fixes to generate probabilistic bus schedules in some cases more reliable than printed schedules.

Department dc:contributor.department

Program in Media Arts and Sciences (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2014

Author dc:creator

• Martin-Anderson, Brandon

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Kent Larson.

• Architecture. Program in Media Arts and Sciences.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/91692

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/91692