California Partners for Advanced Transportation Technology

This paper documents the final analysis of a three part series of institutional evaluations of the TravInfo Field Operational Test from its inception in 1992 through its completion in 1998. The Field Operational Test was performed over a two-year period from September 1996 to September 1998. Funding for the TravInfo evaluation was from the Federal Highway Administration with a matching grant from the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans). The institutional evaluation examined TravInfo's unique concept of open-architecture and its collaborative public-private partnership to broadly disseminate traveler information and foster a commercial market for privately offered advanced traveler information services. Despite many challenges, the field test was completed, and at its conclusion TravInfo was deployed as an integral part of the Bay Area transportation infrastructure. The lessons learned from the field test will be of value to sponsoring agencies and the TravInfo partners as well as to those public agencies that are interested in implementing similar systems. TravInfo's primary successes have come in developing a network of public and private professionals, who have collaborated on the projects in a variety of venues. Key Words: Traveler Field Operational Test, Institutional Evaluation, Advanced Traveler Information System