Cost/Benefits Study on Implementing Mobile Data Terminals in Chapel HillTransit's Paratransit Fleet

摘要

To address the heavy dispatching workload and communications challenges in itsparatransit operations, Chapel Hill Transit (CHT) requested that the Operations Research Department of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill conduct a study on the potential costs and benefits of adding mobile data terminals (MDT's) to CHT's current system. A new type of transportation technology, an MDT is a small computer terminal mounted in the vehicle that communicates directly with the dispatcher's central computer via a communications network. This study addressed this issue. It: (1) Evaluated current CHT paratransit operations from four perspectives: dispatcher, driver, customer, and data collection. This was accomplished by observation and quantitative analysis of dispatcher's booth activity; vehicle ride observation; discussion with dispatchers, drivers, and administrators; distribution of a driver survey; and analysis of a finite-source retrial queueing model. (2) Evaluated potential changes in operations due to MDT's from the same four perspectives. (3) Researched what steps would be necessary to implement a mobile data system. (4) Surveyed different MDT vendors to assess the benefits and costs of each product that was found to suit CHT's needs. (5) Analyzed the anticipated costs of adding MDT's.