The MOD Sandbox Demonstrations are sponsored by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). The MOD Sandbox Demonstrations Independent Evaluation is sponsored by the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT), jointly by the Intelligent Transportation Systems - Joint Program Office (ITS JPO) and the FTA. All documents are USDOT publications. You may access the document at: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/78c7c45j
The Vermont Agency of Transportation’s (VTrans) goal is to develop a trip planner that provides access to flexible mobility options while also building on a platform that can be adapted, utilized, and scaled elsewhere. This proposed trip planner will include itineraries that utilize both fixed and flexible modes of public transit. The final deliverable of this project is a mobile and desktop-accessible statewide OpenTripPlannerwebsite application.
By further developing the open-source OpenTripPlanner, this platform will leverage pre-existing technology and will be distributed back to others who can use it. After the adaptation of the OpenTripPlanner code to accept GTFS-flex data, the project team will submit that code back to the OpenTripPlanner group for incorporation into the core code. The project team will also submit comments on and suggested revisions to the emerging GTFS-flex specification, in order to provide a scalable model on which flexible public transit services can be defined for public consumption through web applications.
The OpenTripPlanner meets FTA’s MOD Sandbox Program goals by conducting research marketing and promoting existing and emerging flexible transit services through open source technologies and open data that allow for the easy discovery of those services through interfaces already understood by most riders. Goals include:
•Improve transportation efficiency by promoting and creating a platform that allows agile, responsive, accessible and seamless multimodal service inclusive of flexible transit modes.
•Increase transportation effectiveness by ensuring that flexible transit is fully integrated and a vital element of a regional transport network that provides consistent, reliable, and accessible service to every traveler.
•Enhance the customer experience by providing an equitable, accessible, traveler-centric interface and leveraging public transportation’s long-standing capability and traditional role in this respect.