Public Transporation and Technology

The upward trend of governments, businesses, and nonprofits collaborating together to improve services and products through social innovation is one that benefits a variety of people. Pittsburgh's public transportation woes are not getting any better with drastically reduced bus lines and one of the highest bus fares in the country.  Carnegie Mellon's Traffic21 is a perfect example of social innovation used to implement "a novel solution to a social problem that is more effective, efficient......for which the value created accrues primarily to society as a whole rather than private individuals." (Stanford Social Innovation Rediscovering Social Innovation)


As a student who frequently uses PAT bus to get around town, a frequent annoyance of mine is when a bus zooms right by the stop due to being at capacity. If another bus with the same route were to arrive in 5 - 10 minutes this would not be as irritating. However, sometimes one has to wait another 30 - 40 minutes for the same bus.  A more efficient scheduling system during peak bus times would eliminate this problem. Traffic21 is working on a bus scheduling and stops study which will hopefully aid PORT authority workers to appropriately plan bus routes and time. In the meantime, CMU developers created the application, Tiramisu which uses crowdsourced information to tell riders if the next approaching bus has availability. Specifically the app informs riders if the bus has: "many seats, few seats, bus is full". This application helps people plan their days more effectively.

The hope is that PORT Authority will be able to use new technology to plan a more efficient operation which will be cost-effective to the needs of their organization, subsequently benefiting riders with a transit system that rivals that with more transit friendly cities.


Sources:
Miller, Dale "Rediscovering Social Innovation" Stanford Social Innovation Review Fall 2008

Daley, Lauren "Dude, where's my bus: CMU-developed transit app will help riders find a ride and a seat" August, 4, 2011. http://www.pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/dude-wheres-my-bus-cmu-developed-transit-app-will-help-riders-find-a-ride-and-a-seat/Content?oid=1397996