THE GENERATION OF INTEGRATED PUBLIC TRANSPORT TRAVEL INFORMATION BY COMPUTER

The existing procedures utilised by travel enquiry clerks, when answering enquiries on journeys involving interchange, are often cumbersome and sometimes slow: in many cases they result in failure to provide the most useful information to the passenger. It has been shown elsewhere that substantial extra revenue for the operator may result if passengers can be given and use details of the quickest trips. The use of a computer to compile travel information would thus appear to be of benefit to travellers and public transport operators alike by providing the facilities for quicker, more accurate and consistent responses to enquirers. The practicability of producing computer software that would generate schedules of trip-opportunities from the public transport timetables was investigated by the transport and Road Research Laboratory. The report describes the software developed, the various options that may be adopted in it, its input and its output. The software has been validated and subjected to field trials (with public access) in libraries and travel enquiry offices. The software has a number of other applications of interest to local authorities, which are also described.(a) (TRRL)