A Standard-Based Integration Framework for Distributed Transit Trip Planning Systems

In the United States, most current transit trip planning systems on the Web are application silos. That is, they are difficult or even impossible to use when planning a trip across transit systems. The problem is especially severe when two transit agencies use different trip planning systems. This article describes a framework to integrate different trip planning systems into a distributed yet seamless system. It uses Web Services and XML technologies, and adopts the advanced traveler information systems standard developed by the Society of Automotive Engineers to exchange transit itinerary information between systems. This integration framework supports loose coupling, expandability, and standardization. It allows individual transit agencies to maintain and update their own data and transit trip planning systems, but uses a mediator server to integrate them in a seamless manner. The end user can plan transit trips that cross different transit system boundaries seamlessly.