Doing more with less requires innovative approaches to transit service delivery. This is the philosophy behind Transitwiki.org, a new website created by transportation planners, for transportation planners.
TransitWiki.org is an innovative, collaborative approach to identifying cost-effective strategies that have worked for transit agencies, complete with the guidance necessary for implementation. Articles are packed with clear, authoritative, and well-researched information and presented in a user-friendly format.
TransitWiki reduces the amount of time spent researching and preparing staff reports, allowing transit agency staff to refocus their energy on implementing high-quality transportation strategies for their customers.
“Transportation researchers have many outlets to publish their work, but often not in a form or in venues accessible to practitioners. TransitWiki allows practitioners to start with an issue or concept, like bus rapid transit, and find lots of information about BRT and related topics with curated links to guidance for each topic,” said Professor Brian Taylor, Director of the UCLA Institute for Transportation Studies. “While some of the largest transit agencies have libraries that curate practice-relevant information and publications, most small agencies don’t have such resources. TransitWiki can help connect these staff with the most up-to-date authoritative information on topics relevant to their work,” Professor Taylor added.
The UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies developed TransitWiki.org with funding from the California Department of Transportation’s Division of Mass Transportation. Caltrans charged UCLA researchers with developing a report that identified cost-effective options to improve transit service as part of its Statewide Transit Strategic Plan effort.
During their research, the UCLA team determined that a Web-based format would offer the flexibility needed to ensure relevance to California’s diverse range of agencies. They also noted the need for a forum to accelerate the dissemination of best practices and lessons learned through statewide experimentation and implementation. UCLA and Caltrans ultimately decided to produce the report content into a wiki-based site that allows agency staff and other transit stakeholders to contribute information about their local experiences.
Early articles focused on cost-effectiveness. New articles focus on transit’s role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the intersection between transit and public health, and the use of technology in transit operations and planning.
Though funded by Caltrans, the site is available to all. Transit professionals are invited to contribute to TransitWiki, which is user-editable like Wikipedia.
Over 50 articles on TransitWiki are available at http://www.transitwiki.org