Monterey-Salinas Transit ITS Augmentation Project: Phase III Evaluation Report

The purpose of this document is to present the findings from Phase II and Phase III of the Evaluation of the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Augmentation Project that was implemented at the Monterey-Salinas Transit (MST) in Monterey, California. This project, implemented using the Federal Fiscal Year 2003 ITS Integration Program Funds, originally included automated passenger counting (APC) technology, digital video surveillance, on-board automated vehicle annunciation (AVA), smart-card based fare payment, web-based trip planning, and real-time information systems. Although many of these systems were already implemented as of August 2008, deployment of some of these technologies has been delayed for institutional or technical reasons. The goal of the evaluation was to determine the impacts of these technologies in performing daily functions such as operations, scheduling, service planning, and maintenance, and to gather and document any lessons learned by the MST throughout the process of the deployment and operation of the technologies. This report discusses impacts to date of the technologies that have been in place for at least one year as of June 2009. The findings from customer satisfaction surveys that were conducted in Phase III to observe the impacts of technologies, particularly real-time information, and web-based trip planning on MST, are also documented in this report. As discussed in the Phase II report, the Evaluation Team was not able to derive conclusions on the direct impact of technology for certain expected changes (e.g., increased ridership, improved on-time performance). Further AVL data analyses were performed in Phase III, but the analysis results regarding schedule adherence remained inconclusive. However, anecdotal information obtained from MST staff during interviews conducted in Phase II provided significant evidence to show that technology has helped MST make significant improvements in operations and planning. Also, based on the customer surveys conducted in Phase III, it can be concluded that a significant number of MST riders are satisfied with the MST service which has been improved through the deployment of the technologies. The survey results reveal that nearly 70% of the riders surveyed are “satisfied” or ”very satisfied” with the reliability of service, and nearly 80% of the riders surveyed are ”satisfied” or “very satisfied” with MST service in general.