ASSESSMENT OF TRANSIT INFORMATION MATERIALS AND DEVELOPMENT OF CRITERIA FOR PROTOTYPE TRANSIT MATERIALS

Through its National Center for Transit Research (NCTR), and under contract with the Florida Department of Transportation, the Center for Urban Transportation Research expanded upon the findings of the NCTR Research Project, Assessment of Operational Barriers and Impediments to Transit Use, where the lack of effective and user-friendly bus schedules and route maps in Florida was identified as a significant barrier to transit use among non-users. The report included is the foundation for a second phase to the above referenced report, where prototype transit information materials will be developed and field tested to evaluate effectiveness of specific design materials. To prepare for the second phase projects, bus schedules and route maps were collected from national markets to identify best practices in transit information materials. These materials were classified based on their design elements. A process was also developed to guide the selection of design elements to be included in prototype materials for the second phase project.