Investigating Institutional Aspects of Multi-Agency Transit Operations- Review of the Literature

Transit systems have traditionally been developed independently from one another,certainly across different regional jurisdictional boundaries,however,even within the same regional jurisdictional boundary where the ramifications of this are most significantly felt.Little attention has been given to coordination,integration,or interoperability between and among systems.As a result,customer satisfaction,market share and public transit relevance has continued to decline. This report,which presents the findings from our literature review of the topic of multi-agency transit operations,describes the motivation for fundamental change in transit operations and the need to enhance coordination among transit agencies.Significant institutional barriers to coordination are identified,along with the role of various stakeholders in either facilitating or inhibiting inter-agency coordination among transit operators.It is found that intelligent transportation systems (ITS)can play a substantive role in the enhancement process of inter- agency coordination within the transit industry in terms of providing a customer-focused and streamlined public transportation system.Intelligent transportation systems can also help in eliminating institutional barriers because it can be seen as a medium through which transit agencies can coordinate with other agencies in order to reap the benefits of implementing ITS on a regional basis.Two particular aspects of transit operations,namely customer information dissemination and fare collection,have the proven capabilities to help encourage coordination among transit service providers.