Five Transit Agencies, One Goal: Big Savings through Partnership and Innovation

In December 2005, Google launched a public transport route planner. The initial launch focused on Portland, Oregon, and the system has now been expanded to include hundreds of cities in the United States. In order to participate in Google Transit, however, transit agencies must prepare their data according to Google transit feed specifications. Implementation of a centralized, web-based application to coordinate and manage route and schedule information, along with web tools to streamline the process for submitting transit operations data to Google Transit is anticipated to be significantly beneficial for rural transit agencies who desire to improve coordination with neighboring transit providers. The web tools developed for this project are anticipated to promote data consistency and improved route and service coordination between multiple small transit providers. Transit providers can also experience an economy of scale by joining forces to establish a centralized location for storing and managing their data.