Speaking at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School on February 16, Veolia Transportation CEO Mark Joseph highlighted the past and present of his company's involvement in Baltimore transportation, and what other cities are doing with technology to improve mobility. Veolia operates the Johns Hopkins shuttle, the city's free downtown Circulator buses, airport Super Shuttle service, and the city's Yellow Cab, which is the oldest in the United States.
Veolia also operates the T system in Boston and the Las Vegas bus system, which has been one of the most successful models nationwide for getting tourists to ride buses. Joseph says that as 2-way radio enabled faster pickups of cab fares and replaced hub-based taxi dispatch systems, greater data availability via GPS is leading to more efficient public transportation. Veolia plans to make an increasing amount of data on its Baltimore operations available over the internet in the near future.
In the larger market of Boston, iPhone app developers and other technologists have taken hold of Veolia and Massachusetts Department of Transportation data to provide precise location services to transit riders and cab customers. In addition to smart phones with app capabilities, any SMS-enabled phone can send and receive information about T service in Boston via resources like T Tracker, and nearby taxis are now visible to customers with Taxi Magic. Baltimore's public transportation efforts are likely to get a boost in 2011 from greater open-source development of similar tools and Veolia's work to make transit data more transparent.
Writer: Sam Hopkins
Source: Veolia