TravInfo Field Operational Test Evaluation: Information Service Providers Customer Survey

Problem

TravInfo is a regional traveler information system in the San Francisco Bay Area. The goal of TravInfo was to broadly disseminate accurate, comprehensive, timely, and reliable information on traffic conditions and multi-modal travel options to the public in the Bay Area through a public-private partnership.

As part of the TravInfo Field Operation Test (FOT), a regional Traffic Information Center (TIC) was created. Since September 1996, the center has been disseminating traveler information to the public through the Traveler Advisory Telephone System (TATS) and to information service providers (ISPs). Presently, three ISPs rely exclusively on TravInfo for travel data which they disseminate through Web sites.

Three privately offered traffic Web sites were evaluated from the user perspective. These Web sites disseminate traffic information on major freeways and the transit schedules of 27 Bay Area transit services. Though all three services receive the same data from the TIC, they all display the information differently.

Findings

The key finding of the survey of users of the three traffic Web sites considered is that Web site service may significantly influence travel behavior. Of those users who received incident reports, 80% modified their trips. This trend is considerably different from the studies of radio/television listeners or telephone information callers. 25% of those who obtained pre-trip incident information from radio or television modified their trips; 50% of those who obtained pre-trip traffic information from TravInfo TATS modified their trips. Possible reasons include:

• People who retrieve Web site information have more travel options than those who obtain information from other sources.
• The Web site information is more understandable than the information disseminated through other media.
  
• People perceived that the quality of the Web site information is better than other sources in terms of its usefulness and reliability, although both the TravInfo telephone system and Web sites disseminate the similar information to users.
• Web site users are more receptive to traffic reports than are those who use other information sources.

These reasons are somewhat conjectural and should be validated. However, it is important to note that nearly half of the Web site users believe that their decision to change travel plans on the basis of the Web site information resulted in substantial time savings.

Most of the Web site users are commuters with full-time jobs. Because of their employment status (high income professionals or managers), their arrival time at work is flexible and they have a varying degree of travel options, either by taking alternate routes or by changing their departure time. Most Web site customers are solo drivers whose primary commute is the freeway, which is understandable because the Web site service provides primarily freeway traffic conditions.