Please note: the best practice guide has now been published. Entitled, 'Public Transport Information Web Sites: How To Get It Right: A Best Practice Guide', it is available to download at http://www.trg.soton.ac.uk/bpg. It is also available to purchase in hardcopy or CD ROM (click here to download Word97 order form). These pages are historic, produced during the project and remain for information only. They will not be updated again.
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27 October 2000
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Modern technology plays an essential role in delivering a higher quality and better used public transport system. The provision of clear and accurate transport information over the Internet will, in time, create an integrated travel and information service to make life easier for anyone who wants to travel. To be effective, such information needs to be carefully assembled and presented.
The University of Southampton's Transportation Research Group (TRG) has been awarded a Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) contract in association with the Institute of Logistics and Transport, to investigate and establish best practice guidelines for the provision of public transport information (PTI) on the Internet.
The research highlights the importance of traveller information in the development of a sustainable transport system, linking in to the Government's 10-year plan for transport and the development of a single source for traveller information on the web, provisionally titled 'Transport Direct'.
PTI is an important requirement in facilitating a journey by public transport, helping to answer the myriad pre-trip questions that travellers face when planning to make a trip by public transport, allowing them to make informed travel choices. Within this, there is the assumption that improved access to information may facilitate a change in travel habits, raising awareness of alternative modes of transport for the journey and making it easier to plan and undertake the journey by a non-car mode.
Internet-based PTI can have a number of advantages over its paper-based counterparts, being quick and convenient to access, and requiring no special trips to locate information. Through the use of hypertext, the information provider can cost-effectively present large amounts of information, through which-with effective information organization, and search and journey planning facilities-the traveller can quickly navigate to locate the specific information required for their journey.
There are now over 400 PTI web sites in the UK, ranging from very basic sites giving contact details of an operator for enquiries, to sites which offer multimodal or multi-operator journey planning facilities, real time service running information, ticket booking and online payment facilities.
However, the quality of both content and presentation of information on these web sites is highly variable. If it is to be effective, it is important that the web site is usable and that the information content is useful, corresponding with user expectations and user needs.
Through the analysis of existing web sites, consultation with service providers and with service users, the research will develop a 'best practice' guide for PTI on the web.
A project web site has been established at http://www.trg.soton.ac.uk/pti, on which further details about the project objectives, the existing accreditation process for Internet based PTI and the project philosophy, can be found. The site includes a feedback form to allow nomination of both good and not so good PTI web sites and to enable the participation of web users in the development of the PTI usability guidelines.
The participation of web
users and industry representatives is encouraged and welcomed.
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