Development of web-based transit trip-planning system based on service-oriented architecture

The majority of transit trip planners exist as proprietary systems based on particular vendor products. With the incorporation of more functional components, system maintenance and regular transit information updates become burdensome tasks for transit agencies. In addition, the proprietary nature of the systems makes it difficult to take advantage of the rapid advancement of geospatial information and web technologies. The authors proposed an open and interoperable transit trip-planning system based on a service-oriented architecture, with the principle of reusing the existing modular resources, while providing user-friendly interfaces for expansion of functionality. The objective was to integrate geospatial services available online (such as Google Maps), open-source geospatial database technologies, and path-finding algorithms in a loosely coupled manner. The proposed system was developed with spatial and temporal transit data from Waukesha Metro Transit in Wisconsin. Research results were validated by comparing outputs from the existing South-East Wisconsin Transit Trip Planner and route schedule matching. Comparison results showed that the new service-oriented architecture provided a flexible, efficient mechanism for transit-trip planners. The architecture took advantage of rapidly changing online geospatial services, yet maintained the core functions of itinerary search that may be unique to each transit agency.