Data Practices Introduction

The National Center for Applied Transit Technology (N-CATT) is a technical assistance center with a mission to provide small urban, rural, and tribal transit agencies with practical resources that help them apply technological solutions and innovations. With better data, a transit agency can more clearly predict future needs, streamline its operations, and better serve the diverse needs within its community. But for small urban, rural, and tribal transit agencies, making good use of data—let alone generating or storing it—requires navigating an ever-growing set of data sources, standards, and analytical methods. To this end, N-CATT presents the Data Practices Guidebook, a resource for agencies seeking actionable insights from data.

At transit agencies, data addresses subjects from customer demographics to agency performance to financial conditions. Though data is often a byproduct of of fare collection, transit operations, or other agency functions, data can also be collected through open data portals, partnerships, or other third- parites. Through more deliberate internal data collection and management efforts, agencies can maximize the value of data in contributing to problem-solving and service improvement. Figure 1 illustrates the cycle of using transit data to solve problems and improve service, while providing an implementation example.

Navigating This Guidebook

For transit agencies, making good use of data begins with identifying, collecting, and storing the data sources your agency may already have. The three first chapters of this Guidebook examine these topics, including obtaining useful data for planning from external sources. The first chapter covers data sources ranging from manual data recorded with pen and paper to sensor-based systems that automatically harvest large quantities of data. With raw data in hand, Chapter Two discusses ways to use common standards to format and manage data. Chapter Three dives into how transit agencies, as data producers and data users, can benefit from accessing external open datasets, as well as opening their transit data.

Data-driven planning decisions are the key to maximizing the use of limited resources for the greatest benefit of transit riders. In this context, the three latter chapters of this Guidebook demonstrate how data can be used for planning and performance monitoring, for shaping partnerships, and for promoting access and equity. While the use of data to inform planning and performance monitoring decisions is not new, the richness of new data sources provides agencies with the ability to conduct more precise evaluations of performance and to plan services with greater clarity. Partnerships with other organizations—whether they be another transit agency, a non-profit, a state agency, a business, or other entity—can help provide insights, technology, or expertise. Lastly, data also provides a means to assess who transit serves and how well it serves them in richer detail than ever before.

Making good use of data is made easier with thoughtful guidance on best practices and lessons learned from peers. For this reason, best practices around the country are featured throughout this Guidebook in call-out boxes. Notable implementations of data practices by small urban, rural, and tribal transit agencies were selected for more detailed research following a desk review of the transit literature. Interviews with transit staff were used to document the context and methods of the practice, significant barriers faced, and the outcomes and lessons learned following the implementation. These data practices are:

• Technology adoption at Frederick TransIT in Chapter One
• General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) file creation at Crawford Area Transportation Authority (CATA) in Chapter Two
• Real-time bus location web interface “Where’s My Bus” implementation at Eastern Panhandle Transit Authority in partnership with Berkeley County in Chapter Five
• Mobile application deployment at Pullman Transit in Chapter Six
• Real-time bus location text service implementation at Blacksburg Transit in Chapter Six.