California Partners for Advanced Transportation Technology

This report presents a study of the effectiveness of the transit telephone information system on trip behavior at Metropolitan Transit Authority ( MTA), from both the user's and the operator's perspective. The objectives of the experiment were: 1) to assess the perception of dynamic transit information service, 2) to identify the media which can most effectively disseminate transit information, and 3) to compare the information service by human operators with the service by an automated system. The study looks at both the supply and the demand side of the provision of telephone information. It explores the way transit information is recorded and used by callers, and looks at the potential impact on their mode choice decision.