Advanced computer and communications technologies offer great promise to public transit systems to help them improve internal operations, offer a better, more reliable service, and to provide customers with up-to-date information to help with their travel. These technologies, such as computer-aided scheduling, dispatching, and routing, automatic vehicle location, and other technologies, have been available for the past 15 years or more. However, initial and on-going costs of operation, plus lack of local expertise, have, until recently, prevented small urban and rural transit systems from taking advantage of these advanced systems. Now, as the cost of these systems decreases, and they become easier to implement without extensive on-going technical support, rural and small urban systems are adopting advanced scheduling, routing and AVL technologies and are considering ways to extend the capabilities of these systems to benefit riders and internal operations.

Dr. Miller will review the technologies that have been successfully implemented in small urban and rural systems, and he will describe an on-going project to add RFID-based (Radio Frequency Identification) passenger ID cards to demand response systems to allow positive identification of persons that cannot give accurate information to drivers (very young children, persons with cognitive disabilities), and to allow for more innovative fare payment options.