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148 Big Data Analytics for Connected Vehicles and Smart Cities The Practical Application of Analytics to Transportation 149

• Passenger information: The use of information technologies such as the
web and smart phones to provide information to passengers regarding
choices, service availability, service reliability, and support for payment
of services. These include at-home services for trip-planning purposes
and on-trip services to provide information regarding the next bus and
route choices.
• Transit ticketing: Support for payment services can come from smart
card–based electronic ticketing systems or more recently using Google
pay or Apple pay, which both take advantage of host card emulation
(using your phone as a credit card) and near field communications (us-
ing your phone to communicate with nearby payment devices) tech-
nologies. Note that with respect to transit ticketing, this departure point
overlaps with the integrated payment.

7.14 Why Does Transit Management Make a Good Departure Point
for a Smart City?

Transit management is a good departure point for a smart city for one simple
reason: It can have a direct impact on the number of people that use transit.
There are some cities around the world where the proportion of trips carried by
public transit can be as high as 70% of the total trips made, but this is not the
case in U.S. cities. In the United States, the total trips carried by public transit
can vary from as little as 5% to more than 50%, leaving considerable scope for
influencing the traveler toward using transit as a mode of travel. The efficiency
of public transit is beyond question; for example, it is estimated that a 40-pas-
senger bus could take off the road 40 private cars [4].
Travel by public transit is also cost-effective, space-efficient, and fuel-effi-
cient. Transit management, with a focus on the most effective and efficient fleet
management, combined with decision-quality information to passengers, has a
significant potential to raise the market share for a smart cities transit system.
Transit vehicles may also represent an early pathway for vehicle automation and
improvement to vehicle fuel consumption and emissions.
In general transit management makes a good departure point, because in
most cities there is a strong need to increase the ridership for public transit. This
is particularly the case in most U.S. cities with a few exceptions (Washington,
D.C., New York, and Boston come to mind). Most cities around the world
have much higher public transit usage than U.S. cities, but it is still important
to ensure proper usage and proper investment in public transit and to make
sure that travelers are aware of the options and opportunities afforded to them.