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Demand-Responsive Transport : Why aren’t they all equal? The reservation channels

on InnovationPublic AuthoritiesTransit Operators by Padam Mobility
Demand-Responsive Transports: reservation channels

There are many types of Demand-Responsive Transport (DRT). They  vary both on the service and on the reservation method. Although it may seem anecdotal, the differences are significant and the results too. How to navigate? We light up the situation with a couple of articles. Today let’s talk about the different reservation channels.

The performance of a Demand-Responsive Transport management system is often reduced to its algorithm. While it is crucial, it is not the only success factor for a DRT.

The importance of the reservation channels

We should not underestimate the importance of reservation channels and their ergonomics. Most of the time, the single or main Demand-Responsive Transport reservation channel is a call center: you have to contact a service by telephone to book your seat. This fits well to the uses of a part of the population: the elderly. They are not comfortable on the internet and have the time to make a call during the day to book their trip. For the rest, several disadvantages must be taken into account:

  • Users can only make reservations during defined time period on daytime. But we rarely plan our trips during the day. We think about them either on the evening or on the morning. On average on our service, 46% of the reservations are made before 8.am or after 6.pm in the evening.
  • Teenagers and young adults do not like making phone calls (source in French)
  • Reservation by phone requires agents to take reservations. As a result, the more people who use the service, the more switchboard operators.
The advantages of online reservation

More and more networks have taken the measure of these disadvantages and offer the possibility to book by internet. This limits the staff needed to manage reservations and allows users to book their trip at any time. However, it will be necessary to think of a mobile version of the booking wesite at the risk of missing out more than the half of the traffic: in France, there are more Internet users to connect via their smartphone than their computer (Source in French).

Finally, since more recently, some communities offer an online booking, by phone but also via a booking app. This is for example the case of TAD Ile-de-France Mobilités.

Why favoring the reservation by app?
  • In France, 73% of French people own a smartphone according to the Digital Barometer of 2017.
  • Smartphone users spend more than 85% of their time on their smartphone to use an app (Source in French).
  • Apps allow to make more sophisticated and complete interfaces while requiring a less qualitative Internet connection.
  • Communication with users is facilitated. Thanks to the notifications it is possible to warn the user when his van is about to arrive; to inform him in real time about his situation (arrival time, delay or possible advance) and ask him to rate his experience at the end of his trip.

In rural areas, an ergonomic and well-designed website and a call center should be enough to meet the demand on one hand. On the other hand, if your audience is made up of smartphone users (service within peri-urban areas, industrial sites, activity areas , railway stations, airports and residential areas), we highly recommend the use of mobile apps as a reservation channel.

What do the users expect?

The wave of Uber, Lyft and other chauffeur-driven cars services have shown how far booking a trip can be easy. Users expect an interface with same quality for public transport. Setting up such an offer is quickly rewarded. A well-designed application can channel almost all bookings and  help saving money for managing them. As an example, on the Demand-Responsive Transport services that use the Padam Mobility platform, more than 90% of the reservations go through the app.

Under the name “Demand-Responsive Transport” there is therefore, on the one hand, a service which must be reserved the day before by telephone and, on the other hand, a service which can be reserved via an app. Not all solutions fit to all uses cases, and choosing the right tool is a crucial step for the success of a Demand-Responsive Transport service.

 

Read more about Padam Mobility Demand-Responsive Transport solutions

Read more about other parameters to keep in mind when choosing a Demand-Responsive Transport solution

 

 

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Interview with Thierry Occelli, Sophia Antipolis Urban Community

on InterviewPublic Authorities by Padam Mobility
Demand-Responsive Transport: Thierry Occelli

Interview of Thierry Occelli , VP of the Sophia Antipolis Community (CASA) about the implementation of the Icilà Demand-Responsive Transport.

How is the Sophia Antipolis Urban Community (CASA) specifically adapted to the challenges of shared mobility?

CASA is constantly facing new demands and needs, due to the development of the Sophia Antipolis technopolis. CASA is improving its mobility services and is constantly thinking about how to optimize its solutions, mainly in the area of DRT: to expand the resources allocated to the offer, to span new territories, improve booking processes and its reliability, ensure good customer feedback….

Does CASA already have a DRT solution? For which use cases?

Yes. There is already some very successful DRT solutions in 10 areas under the IciLà brand.

  • For school children, the DRT allows trips beyond the traditional hours of school (8am, 5pm). 128,000 journeys have been recorded since it was commissioned a year ago. These trips are carried out on the 24 districts of the agglomeration.
  • For mobility impaired people, we provide a more individualized offer because it allows sidewalk to sidewalk trips.
  • CASA is often asked to deploy this service in the evening, especially during major one-off events (shows, theatres, etc.).
Why did you choose to launch a new service with Padam Mobility?

The main problem faced by the Sophia Antipolis Urban Community regarding to its DRT is the booking. Our call center is often saturated at the beginning of the week, despite the recent introduction of an online pre-booking plant.

Since the main users of CASA’s DRT are high school teenagers, Padam Mobility will make the bookings easier to those who are more comfortable with smartphones.

The agglomeration tend to digitize and dematerialize all the process, especially the transport tickets. We also rely on Padam Mobility to achieve this goal. Finally, the DRT was certified ISO9001 in March 2019 and meets CASA’s ongoing improvement objectives.

What are the locals expectations of DRT?

To be able to book by themselves, online, and easely.

What about your expectations?

The Sophia Antipolis Urban Community expects a lot from this experimentation with Padam Mobility, involving 12 vehicles on 2 areas. Despite the particularity of our offer (zoning, single operator from the first of July), we desire to collect as much quantitative informations as possible (statistics, survey informations, datas, kms travelled, grouping rate, number of people transported, etc.) and qualitative feedbacks (trips evaluations, etc.) because we don’t have them for the moment.

The point is to gain enough detailed datas for the implementation and KPI’s that evaluate if the DRT solutions are improvable.

Padam Mobility provides extremely detailed statistical reports and will be able to meet these expectations. The introduction of a banner in the application, pointing to a satisfaction survey, allows to have very qualitative feedback.

We advocate the responsiveness of our solutions. Like CASA’s dynamic carpooling approach, we want dynamic DRT.

What other innovations are you preparing for shared mobility?

CASA is constantly considering new mobility solutions and has recently embarked on an experimentation of autonomous vehicles on public roads. An experiment on a dedicated track has already taken place in 2016, and now we would like to experiment it in general traffic conditions and on a specific area of Sophia Antipolis (last mile management and intermodality with the future Bustram line).

Padam Mobility works with autonomous vehicle players to offer on demand autonomous vehicles.

Regarding soft mobility, CASA has launched its own bike plan with electric bicycles, opened bike paths with the possibility to use forest tracks, enhanced home-to-work trips, improved traffic black spots, created a bike house in Sophia Antipolis with 10 and soon 20 bikes available, free of charge to users, to promote electric bicycles… Finally, the Sophia Antipolis cycling community was created and already has 500 members.

Thierry Occelli, vice president of the Sophia Antipolis Urban Community.

 

About Icilà, the Demand-Responsive Transport service of Sophia Antipolis

Launched in July 2019 with Envibus, icilà is a DRT service which meets a great success. With +6600 trips per month for around 37000 passengers.km, the service answers mobility needs in low-density areas of the Sophia Antipolis urban community and at the same time contributes to its digital transformation.

Read more (in French)

Read another interview

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What does your bus ticket price hide ?

on Public AuthoritiesTransit Operators by Padam Mobility
real cost of public transportation

The recent release of a report by the Court of Auditors about the annual fraud cost on public transport in Ile-de-France region (as a reminder: about 1 million euros per day [1]), led me to read many more or less virulent reactions on the subject. Between ” Fraud is not good, good payers pay for others,” People cheat because it’s too expensive », « Transport is a public service and should therefore be free or “the If the RATP provided a better service, I would pay for my tickets” no one really seemed to go along with the source of the trouble and the solutions. I realized that beyond the issue of fraud, few people knew the real cost of public transportation and the complex economic balance they conceal.

If you stop a random person on the streets of Paris, chances are that they know the “basic” price of transport in Paris (except perhaps Nathalie Kosciusko Morizet wink): ticket T at 1.80 euros for zones 1 to 2 andNavigo passes at a single rate of 70 euros for zones 1 to 5 since September 2015. We often hear people complaining about the high fare of public transport in Ile-de-France, but you should know that these 1.80 euros that make us sigh so much are only the tip of the iceberg. I’ll make a revelation: this actually represents only 1/3 of the actual cost (tadaaaam!).

A bus ticket actually costs a little more than 5 euros and the navigo pass monthly a little more than 200 euros …

Grass is not necessarly greener elsewhere

When we contrast transport prices in Paris to other European capitals, we quickly realize that Parisian prices (and more generally French prices) are relatively low compared to our European neighbours [2], especially in Northern Europe. This is spotlighted by the map below, which, although somewhat dated, shows some huge gaps:

real cost of public transportation
Source: http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/atlas/environnement/a53629

I remember my surprise, during my Erasmus exchange in Sweden in front of the price of transport in Stockholm (440 Swedish kronor for 10 tickets zones A and B (almost 50 euros). Even worse in London, where despite the introduction of the “Oyster card”, the rates remain very high, with a monthly subscription from £93 to £385, depending on the areas chosen! Let’s not talk about the fraud penalties, which are quite deterrent (40 euros in Berlin and £80 in London), with more frequent checks than Paris.

On the other hand, I was pleasantly surprised during my trips to Lisbon and Barcelona to find transport at more than reasonable rates. France is therefore more in the low average in terms of transport prices.

Of course, we must balance these higher or lower prices with the standard of living – higher in Northern Europe than in Southern Europe – as well as the quality of the networks, which is excellent for example in Scandinavia (taking the commuter train “S-tog” in Copenhagen , a kind of hybrid between an RER and a Transilien, is a real joy). This high quality service has therefore a huge impact on the cost of the ticket.

On the other hand, public subsidies are often lower in the Nordic countries compared to France. This is especially the case in England, where transport privatisation was initiated in the mid-1980s (Hi Margaret Thatcher!). Users pay the high price, but that is actually the “real price” of transport. The question then arises: in Paris region, where does the additional funding that cover the remaining 2/3 of the ticket price come from?

Real cost of public transportation: A finance ensured mainly by companies and communities

The STIF website highlights the transport financing in France [3], spreaded as follows in 2014:

Mobility - Stif Recipes

The first public transport funding stem from local firms, through the VT (Transport Payment). Any company with more than 10 employees pays employer charges to finance the public transport. These revenues are then assigned to the transport authorities (the STIF in this case for Paris area). This tax represents, depending on the companies location, 1.5% to 2.7% of the total payroll. As for the STIF, the transport payment represents 3.6 billion euros in 2014 (65% of its budgetary recipe and almost 40% of the total funding).

Half of the funding is provided by the Ile-de-France region, and the rest is distributed among the departments of France. These contributions from local authorities are financed mainly by local taxes and property taxes borne by households and businesses. Finally, the State also subsidizes part of the ticket price, but to a lower rate than local authorities.

An OMNIL report [4] covering the period 2000-2009 shows that the share of users revenues represents only 30% of the total STIF revenues in 2009:

Mobility - revenue and expenses

This same study also shows that the share of household contributions (i.e. the purchase of tickets or subscriptions) was generally constant over the period 2000-2009:

Mobility - Distribution of the operating resources of public transport in France

Interestingly, the state is gradually withgetting transport funding in the Ile-de-France region, leaving more responsibility for local authorities, especially the region. This change was driven by the wave of decentralization of 2002-2003 and the constitutional law of March 28th 2003, ratified under the Raffarin government [5].

Real cost of public transportation: A sensitive economic balance

The problem is that local authorities have inherited these responsibilities without necessarily benefiting from equivalent funding, leading to a shaky budgetary balance. Ile-de-France specificly has to deal with old and ageing infrastructures in addition to a greater transport demand (for example more than 2 million daily passengers on the A line of the RER). Major maintenance is scheduled every summer until 2021, requiring a complete traffic disruption. Moreover, urban sprawl in Ile-de-France means the extension of existing lines or the construction of new lines (see the Greater Paris project), sometimes at enormous costs.

If we look at the overall expenditure on public transport in France over the period 2000-2009, operating expenditure has increased by 45%, while in comparison capital expenditure has increased by 119%!

Mobility - Global spending

And if we look at the evolution of operating expenses VS the capital expenditure in constant euros, the gap is even more impressive!

real cost of public transportation

Another illustration of this uncertain budgetary balance: the creation of the Navigo single-price pass, a very symbolic measure introduced on September 2015, which is at first glance a good news for users (although this point is questionable [6]). But from an economic perspective, this measure led to revenue decrease estimated in 2016 at 485 million euros by the regional council [7]. Loss that will have to be partially compensated by employers up to 210 million euros via the increase of the Transport Payment. What about the rest? The track mentioned for the moment between Valérie Pécresse, president of Ile-de-France, and Manuel Valls, prime minister, would be to erase a debt of 300 million euros of the regions toward RATP [8], at least for 2016…

I hope that this article will have given you a slightly more global view of our transport, and that you will look at your bus ticket in the future with a different eye. Wink

[1] http://www.lefigaro.fr/conjoncture/2016/02/10/20002-20160210ARTFIG00087-transports-en-ile-de-france-un-echec-collectif-contre-la-fraude.php

[2] http://transports.blog.lemonde.fr/2014/06/30/en-france-les-transports-urbains-demeurent-moins-chers-que-la-moyenne-europeenne/

[3] http://www.stif.org/organisation-et-missions/le-volet-economique/le-budget-du-stif/article/les-recettes-de-fonctionnement.html

[4] http://www.omnil.fr/IMG/pdf/transports_en_commun_en_chiffres_edition_2000-2009.pdf

[5] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC3A9centralisation_en_France#D.C3.A9centralisation_territoriale

[6] http://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2015/09/01/ile-de-france-les-gagnants-et-les-perdants-du-passe-navigo-a-tarif-unique_4741939_4355770.html

[7] http://www.lepoint.fr/societe/le-passe-navigo-a-tarif-unique-une-fausse-bonne-idee-31-08-2015-1960554_23.php

[8] http://www.lesechos.fr/politique-societe/regions/021678730241-manuel-valls-et-valerie-pecresse-saccordent-sur-le-financement-2016-du-passe-navigo-1198436.php

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Cars VS public transport : a watermelon story…

on InnovationPublic AuthoritiesTransit Operators by Padam Mobility
transport urbain

As the COP21, the United Nations Climate Change Conference will be held in a few months in Le Bourget with representatives from 62 countries, we wish to share our thoughts about the role of the car in our cities and its complementarity with public transport.

Transport at the very heart of the COP21’s challenges

You will surely not learn anything new if I tell you that one of the main causes of global warming is the greenhouse gases emission, starting with CO2. All sectors are concerned (agriculture, industry, etc.), but also households and the consumption of goods, the use of electrical devices or their daily travel.

In order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which began several years ago, transport is of course the first to be targeted, as it currently remains the leading greenhouse gas emitting sector according to figures provided by the Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy, despite a decrease by 8 of the emissions since 2004[1]. Transport is thus responsible for 27.8% of national emissions, with firstly road transport (92% of greenhouse gas emissions, including 57% for private vehicles).

Conférence des Nations Unies sur les changements climatiques

With a tiny calculation we deduce that private cars alone are responsible for nearly 16% of France’s greenhouse gas emissions. Of course, efforts have been made in recent years to reduce emissions: vehicles that consume and pollute less, scrapping incentives to encourage the renewal of the French car fleet, tax credits linked to the purchase of hybrid or electric cars, incentives to carpool, etc.

Although these measures obviously contribute to reduce the carbon footprint of individual travel, they are nevertheless based on the use of the car, a personal vehicle that can carry up to 7 people, but that often remains occupied by one or two passengers maximum, especially over short distances. A private car on a home to work journey is thus occupied on average by only 1.1 passengers in Paris area[2], a sign that carpooling is far from being a general rule. A paradox when you know that three buses or a tramway could carry the same number of passengers as 177 cars, as illustrated below:

Optimisation des transports

The idea here is not to denigrate or demonize the car, but to ask ourselves an essential question: why, despite the many existing and often less polluting alternatives (public transport, train, bicycle, etc.), is the car still the favourite transport way, even in urban areas over short distances? When you look at the condition of the ring road of any major French city at peak times, it is legitimate to wonder why so many people prefer cars to public transport.

Public transport: Car, car, my dear car…

First, there is a strong argument in favour of the car: it has a positive image in our society, being generally associated with driving pleasure and freedom rather than CO2 emissions, in the drivers’ mind. French consumers remain very attached to their cars and the positive concepts associated with driving. Aesthetics, speed, well-being, freedom… You only have to look at any car ad to realize that it’s always the same images that come back. The car is thus represented in advertising as a vehicle that drives in huge spaces in or a city totally emptied of its vehicles and its inhabitants. An image totally out of step with the reality of driving and the time spent daily in traffic jams.

This mismatch between advertising and the actual use of a car is very well summed up by Olivier Razemon on his blog [3]: “Nothing is less like everyday urban traffic than a car commercial.”

A second element darkens the idyllic picture presented in the advertisements: the cost of a particular vehicle on a daily basis, between purchase, gas, parking and repairs, the score is rather salty and averages 3300€ per vehicle per year in 2014[ 4].

Of course, it is undeniable that the aesthetics and performance of a car are taken into account when buying a car. The model and characteristics chosen when buying a car allows its owner to have a certain image of himself. However, these arguments alone are inadequate to explain why many french people still prefer their vehicles over public transport. The main argument that could explain the success of the car is, in my opinion, the comfort. Between a noisy sometimes worn out, and often crowded public transport and a car certainly stuck in traffic, but where we are alone, comfortably sitting, the comparison is quickly made . Efforts have been made to improve the comfort of transit users, but for the moment, they remain well below what the car can offer.

Houston, we lost the connection !

The second factor that could explain the car’s success is more practical. Not only does the car avoid connections, but also load breaks during door-to-door trips. The question of intermodality is at stake here: it remains difficult indeed to articulate the use of the car and public transport. Most often this intermodality is done via car parks or relay parks located on the outskirts of cities, right next to public transport lines (metro, tram, trains etc). The problem is that the car parks are quickly saturated since each passenger drives there individually. As a result: anarchic parking, traffic jams, complexity to get nearby…

One of the answers to the question of transit-car intermodality is the one provided by Sharette, a startup that seeks to encourage carpooling to or from transit lines. The solution proposed by Sharette was thus integrated into the route search of the RATP application during the RER A outage during the summer of 2015.

sharette

Three kilometers on foot, wear out your shoes for good…

The last complaint that could be attributed to public transport is the rigidity of their fixed lines compared to the very great flexibility of the car. Fixed lines are very well adapted to mass transport, but are much less efficient at meeting dispersed demand, in medium-populated urban areas for example. These fixed lines, organized in Ile-de-France following a radial structure and established for sometimes decades, do not allow to meet the demands in suburb areas, which nevertheless represent more than 30% of the IDF travels according to a STIF study [5]. We notice the same issue on province to province travel, a real headache by train or TGV, where you have to go through Paris most of the time. Similarly, fixed transit lines do not respond well to the problem of the last kilometer: being dropped off two or three kilometres from home and being forced to complete the journey on foot or by bicycle is not necessarilythe best for users.

Public transport: Why don’t we change eras?

A large-scale experiment, completely abolishing fixed lines, has been set up in Finland in Helsinki, where public transport lines adapt in real time to the demand of users. The initiative had two main objectives: on one hand, to allow a better intermodality between “classic” and on-demand public transport, on the other hand to significantly reduce the number of cars in the city. The latter were no longer essential if users could find alternative transport at low cost, offering almost the same flexibility as a private car, with less parking problems.

Grid

This is also the vision we share at Padam Mobility: the problem of the last kilometer and the optimization of lines according to demand is a fundamental question to be answered in order to better optimize public transport, and therefore resources. natural resources and public funds. The all-car era may be behind us.

PS: In fact, you’ve been tricked, this article finally had nothing to do with watermelons, thank you for being to the end!

Sources:

[1] http://www.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/Part-et-evolution-des-secteurs.html
Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy

[2] http://www.actu-environnement.com/media/pdf/news-22056-covoiturage-cgdd.pdf
Office of the Commissioner General for Sustainable Development: Carpooling for commuting to and from work: what potential?

[3] http://transports.blog.lemonde.fr/2013/07/19/la-pub-parodique-qui-fait-enrager-citroen/
Interconnection is no longer assured, Olivier Razemon’s blog

[4] http://www.lefigaro.fr/conso/2014/01/25/05007-20140125ARTFIG00275-utiliser-un-vehicule-represente-un-cout-de-3300-euros-par-an.php

[5] http://www.stif.org/IMG/pdf/6.rUseaux_TC.pdf
Public transport networks in the Ile de France: structures and performance

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