Integrated Dynamic Transit Operation (IDTO) System Using Connected Vehicle Technologies

Under the sponsorship of California Department of Transportation(CalTrans), California PATH has been conducting efforts developing an Integrated Dynamic Transit Operation (IDTO) System for multimodal suburban transit, in collaboration with Contra Costa Transportation Authority (CCTA) and Tri-Delta Transit. The IDTO system aims at supporting enhanced transit operations by dynamically holding vehicles at bus stops to meet with connecting passengers (Transfer Connection Protection or T-CONNECT), adjusting transit routing to pick up passengers not on regular routes or avoiding congestion regions (Dynamic Dispatch or T-DISP), facilitating first-mile and last-mile shared riders (Dynamic Rideshare or D-RIDE), and providing travelers with real-time trip update information. All these applications are integrated into the IDTO framework and operate in real-time to enable enhanced connectivity, more convenient public tansit service and improved service quality for the suburban travel public. For the Phase Ⅰ effort, an IDTO prototype was developed and filed operational testing involving the T-CONNECT function was conducted on selected BART routes, bus routes operated by Tri-Delta Transit and major bus-bus and BART-bus connection points at Contra Costa County. The demonstration results show that the IDTO can offer significantly reduced travel time and improve connectivity for a large number of travelers, and has the potential to change travel demand which in turn to help congestion relief, to enable more cost-effective operation, and to make public transit a more attractive travel alternative. Following the objective of IDTO, PATH is moving forward to an extended research phase which aims at a fully functional and deployed IDTO system.

The video on this page demonstrates a typical example of the T-CONNECT application involving the traveler, the dispatch operation center and the vehicle driver during the field operational test.

Integrated Dynamic Transit Operation System-Demonstration

Integrated Dynamic Transit Operation System - Demonstration of T-CONNECT application