Travel is essential to independent living. But many people, including the 14.2 million persons in US with cognitive impairments, lack basic skills needed to successfully plan and complete a city bus trip. One such skill is the ability to identify the correct stop and signal the desire to disembark at the appropriate time.
Agencies in many cities provide door-to-door paratransit services that get people where they need to go, but cost, on average, 10 times what the same trip would cost using fixed-route transit systems.
This is why researchers at the Center for Urban Transportation Research (CUTR) at the University of South Florida (USF) are developing the Travel Assistance Device (TAD), a software and web application for GPS-enabled cell phones that alerts riders with real-time auditory, visual, and tactile prompts when to exit the bus.
How the Travel Assistance Device Works
The TAD features navigation software for GPS-enabled mobile phones (similar to an iPhone application) and an online trip management tool for creating itineraries and tracking. The TAD has a Google Maps-style interface. Users click to select starting and destination end points. Once entered, each trip appears on a drop-down menu on the cell phone.
Once a trip (e.g. “Work to home”) is selected, the TAD provides directional information on getting to the bus stop, much like a car navigation system. The TAD also tells riders where the bus is and approximately how long the wait will be.
Once on the bus, the TAD alerts riders, either by vibrating or audio commands (e.g. “Get Ready…” and “Pull the Cord Now!”) when to signal their stop and when to get off. The device also helps riders make bus transfers.
The TAD also provides real-time tracking: if a rider misses a stop or gets lost, travel trainers or family members can see where they are via the TAD website.
Travel Assistance Device Has Broad Potential Market
The TAD was originally aimed at persons with cognitive impairments, but Sean Barbeau, a CUTR research associate at the University of South Florida, says the TAD will likely find broader use. “Populations have come forward and said it would be useful,” said Barbeau, the TAD project leader. “Travel trainers who teach many persons with disabilities were one of the first groups we worked with.”
Barbeau’s team developed the initial concept for the TAD with funding from the Florida Department of Transportation and built the prototype with a US Department of Transportation grant. Six students successfully tested the device on Tampa’s
Hillsborough Area Regional Transit (HART) bus system with the help of HART’s travel trainer Mark Sheppard.
The next phase, Barbeau said, includes expanding testing to other cities and finding partners to explore TAD’s commercial potential.
The TAD is designed to work without having to install anything on city buses, but, according to Barbeau, developers need data on bus routes—information about 100 US cities have posted using Google Transit Feed Specifications—the de facto standard for representing bus routes in electronic format.
Barbeau is not sure how strong the commercial market is for the TAD and whether the service will be fee-based once implemented on a wide scale. “I’d love to see this become a service available to anyone who might benefit from it.” Barbeau said. “It’s one of the most rewarding projects we’ve ever worked on, giving people with disabilities and other mass transit users greater independence.”
Andrew Leibs - Andrew Leibs is Suite101’s Feature Writer for Accessible Recreation. He is a longtime chronicler of the disability movement with ...
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