Virginia Railway Express (VRE), a commuter railroad serving Washington, DC and
the Virginia suburbs, has a fairly simple but effective service to share
information with their customers via e-mail.

The service, called "Train Talk" allows VRE to send e-mail messages to their
customers advising them of rail service disruptions as well as less time
critical information, such as new services and schedule changes.

If anyone would like to try the service you may sign-up for it at
http://www.vre.org.  Just click on the box for E-mail news updates.

Is anyone else aware of other transit agencies or even highway agencies, that
are using e-mail to alert their customers of traveler information?  It seems
like a relatively easy and inexpensive service and I'm surprised more agencies
aren't using this type of service to communicate with their customers.





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Here's a release about delivering traffic information via pager & PCS.

RTS Wireless and Traffic Station Group to Provide Real-Time Traffic Information
for Pager and PCS Phone Users

     PLAINVIEW, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 27, 1998--Commuters soon will be able
to receive real-time, personalized information about traffic conditions via
their PCS phone, cellular phone, pager or other wireless communication device,
thanks to a strategic alliance announced today by RTS Wireless (formerly Real
Time Strategies Inc.) and The Traffic Station Group, LLC.

     The two companies will collaborate to combine the RTS Wireless Advantage(TM)
messaging platform with the Traffic Station(TM) real-time traffic status
reporting system.  The development of software integrating the two products will
maximize the efficiency and power of Traffic Station's services while minimizing
the network impact to wireless carriers.

     The traffic-reporting service will be the first of several marketing and
technological initiatives the companies will jointly develop to help wireless
carriers generate new revenues and value while also meeting their technical
needs.

     Traffic Station combines real-time traffic information with award-winning
design and state-of-the-art database and Internet technology to create an
advanced, consumer-oriented service.  Users of the subscription-based service
simply enter the points of entry and exit for their travels and in a matter of
seconds receive personalized traffic conditions for their entire route.

     Traffic Station's text and automated telewarning alerts are available to
telephones and all wireless communication devices such as pagers, cellular and
PCS phones, personal information managers and the new Microsoft Windows CE Auto
PC.

     "Working with The Traffic Station Group will allow both companies to offer
wireless carriers a comprehensive, turn-key solution for high-volume delivery of
compelling services that will generate new revenues and value for end users
while addressing the carriers' technical needs," said Al Ring, president of RTS
Wireless.

     "Some of the most critical technical challenges in providing our traffic
data for consumers involve the latency and efficiency in management of network
capacity for wireless carriers," said Barry Weingart, chief operating officer,
The Traffic Station Group. "Working with RTS Wireless will enable us to take a
big step forward in achieving our goal of developing intelligent transportation
and traffic information systems with unprecedented precision and efficiency."

      The Traffic Station launched on Oct. 1, 1997 and now operates in Los
Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, San Francisco, Chicago, Atlanta, Houston and
New York with an additional 16 cities to be deployed during 1998. The Traffic
Station is the leading provider of personalized traffic information and turn-key
solutions for content aggregators delivered via the Internet, telewarning and
all mobile communication platforms. The Traffic Station's distribution partners
include MSNBC, Sidewalk, Zip2, Electric Village and GTE Wireless. As a Microsoft
Gold Channel Partner for Internet Explorer 4.0 and Windows 98, the Traffic
Station also takes advantage of IE 4.0's dynamic HTML and push features to
deliver information to the user's "Active Desktop" through a ticker tape relay,
providing traffic conditions throughout the day. The Traffic Station has also
contracted with Microsoft to implement its traffic solutions on Windows CE for
AutoPCs and handheld devices.

      Founded in 1988, RTS Wireless (http://www.rtswireless.com) is a worldwide
leader in providing innovative, reliable, value-added PCS, cellular and paging
infrastructure technology and wireless messaging solutions to leading
telecommunications companies. Its Advantage message-switching platform provides
a host of advanced capabilities including operating, monitoring, controlling and
protecting service providers' wired and wireless networks; interfacing with
callers and subscribers to create innovative revenue-producing services; and
providing gateways between dissimilar networks to create unified messaging
solutions.

      Advantage is a trademark of RTS Wireless. Traffic Station is a trademark of
The Traffic Station Group, LLC. All other trademarks are the property of their
respective owners.

      This document is available on the KCSA Worldwide web site at www.kcsa.com

     --30--jl/flb/ny*  mem

CONTACT:

RTS Wireless:

KCSA Worldwide, New York

Henry P. Feintuch or Stephanie Battles

212/896-1212 or 1228

Fax: 212/697-0910

Email: hfeintuch@...  or  sbattles@...

or

Traffic Station:

Geoff Halstead, 213/882-1875 ext. 121

geoff@...


Free web-based email, Forever, From anywhere!
http://www.mailexcite.com


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Caltrans, District 11 (San Diego & Imperial Counties)

From: Lawrence Emerson@DOT on 07/27/98 11:59 AM


To:   transport-communications@...
cc:
Subject:  Communications Clarification

I am responding to Melanie Brown's question on "Communication" definition
for this mail list.  I originally signed up to mainly learn about the
"technical ways" to Communicate with fiber, radio , etc., but feel the ATIS
(Advanced Traveler Information System) Communications for commuters is just
as important.

We are working on an Intermodal Transportation Management Center (IMTMC)
Project  in San Diego, California.  It involves working with many agencies
-cities, county,  transit, etc., and many subgroups including a Transit
Subgroup, ATIS Subgroup, and Communications Subgroup (technical how to).
We are currently defining the user requirements for the system(s) with all
the agencies, but hope to move forward with ATIS even before our new IMTMC
is designed and in full operation.

    I would be interested to know several things about your Mn/DOT's traffic
management center:

1) What kind of business framework do you use or plan to use with the
private sector to deliver traveler information?

2) What kind of Transit Information do you provide and how? Tel, Web?

3) How do you currently share information on road traffic with other local
agencies?  Future plans?

(P.S.  By coincidence, today someone just handed me a 1996 report entitled
"Traffic Management Program Overview" on the Twin Cities Metro Area )

Lawrence Emerson

Intermodal TMC Project

619-467-3013

lawrence.emerson@...




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Hi, thanks for the welcome message. I work at Mn/DOT's traffic management center
in Minneapolis and work on traveler information programs here.

I'm also the head marketing communications person that works with the media and
does public relations and outreach planning and implementation.

It dawned on me that the "communications" professionals that this list caters to
has to do with things like fiber optic cable, not marketing communications. If
so, I probably shouldn't be on this list. Could you provide some clarification
as to exactly what your idea of communications is?

Melanie Braun
Traveler Information Section
Traffic Management Center
612.341.7418
melanie.braun@...



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>  ...modified the list so that the reply button only sends mail to the original
sender...

That's a very good idea!  I'll have to suggest that to the
administrators of a few other lists I subscribe to.

---
D. Michael McIntyre
(Demolition Man)
mmcintyr@...
www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/index.html


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First my apologies for the automated "out of the office" message that was
repeatedly sent to the list yesterday in reply to my posting.  As soon as I
became aware of the problem I manually unsubscribed the address that was
causing the messages.

As a result of that problem, and hopefully to avoid a reoccurrence, I have
made a modification to the list.  As of now if you click the reply icon or
command when you read a message that is sent to the Transportation
Communications list, your reply will only go to the sender of the message.
You may still reply to the entire list, you simply must be certain your
message is sent to:
transport-communications@....

This should prevent the problem we experienced last night.  Again I'm sorry
for the inconvenience this caused.

Bernie Wagenblast
Transportation Communications List Manager


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The July issue of "Transportation & Distribution" has an article on how the
logistics industry is using the Internet.  Among the points made:

* Logistics professionals are unsure how best to leverage Internet use.

* Shippers are beginning to use the Internet in place of fax and the telephone
to tender loads and communicate with customers.  The use of the Internet is
seen as a way to save call center costs and to allow real-time shipment
tracking and delivery information.

* Another use of the Internet by the logistics industry is for materials
tracking.  One company has used the Internet to replace a dial-up connection
to their computer.

* The evolution of the Internet by logistics companies has gone from a start
where it was only used as a marketing tool, to providing a one-way
distribution channel to send information to customers, to where some carriers
are now providing customized quotes online.

* One company is quoted as saying the Internet allows companies to deliver
information more effectively than any other communication resource.

* The Internet is becoming a vehicle to push information through the supply
chain.

As I come across articles and releases I believe have a relationship to
transportation communications I've been sending them to the list.  Where
possible I will include either the text of the article or a link to the story.
While not all articles will be of interest to everyone, please let me know if
you find this use of the list helpful.  Thank you.

Bernie Wagenblast


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Those who are interested in the transit side of transportation communications
may find an interview with William Millar, the president of the American
Public Transit Association (APTA) to be of interest.  The interview, by ITS
America, discusses the impact of TEA 21, the new U.S. transportation funding
law, on transit related ITS projects.  This includes several areas that can be
consider to be communications related.  You can find the text of the interview
at:

http://www.itsa.org/itsnews.nsf/key/2F9E?OpenDocument


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Dear Urban Mobility Professional,

The next issue of our Urban Mobility Professional magazine will discuss
“Traffic Management”. Presently I am searching for related press releases,
articles, research projects to publish. Furthermore I am also interested in
“Traffic Management” experts who would like to be listed in our magazine
with the following information: name, company, e-mail, URL, a short CV and a
picture.

All the information received will be included in our Internet platform. Only
a selection of the received information will be published in our magazine.

You can send the information by e-mail, fax or to our postal address. Please
contact me if you have any questions.

Looking forward to your reaction.
Best regards,

P.s. to subscribe to our FREE magazine, please go to
(http://www.mobility-net.com/ump)

Cindy Kerckhoffs
Editor / Information Manager
Urban Mobility Network
P.O. Box 917
6200 AX Maastricht
Tel. ++31 43 3213022
Fax. ++31 43 3211062
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Visit our Mobility Forum. Current topics : Y2K and EURO :
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                           *** NEW service: The Urban Mobility Bookshop.
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TransGuide Unveils Traffic Management Technologies of the Future

Model Program to Improve Traffic Congestion, Emergency Response Time, Safety

SAN ANTONIO, July 21 /PRNewswire/ -- TransGuide, developed by the Texas
Department of Transportation (TxDOT) as one of the most advanced traffic
management systems in the world, today unveiled several new projects under a
federal initiative called Model Deployment (MDI).

Since TransGuide became operational on 26 miles of San Antonio highway, it has
reduced accidents by 15% and cut emergency response time by 20%. The system will
eventually expand to cover 289 miles of highways and city streets all around San
Antonio.

TransGuide utilizes fiber optics, sensors and video cameras to detect changes in
traffic flows and was the first system of its kind to respond to traffic
incidents with preprogrammed scenarios -- a process adapted from NASA's space
program.

     The new MDI projects include:
     -- Lifelink -- An emergency medical system which allows two-way video,
        audio and data teleconferencing between hospitals and San Antonio Fire
        Department EMS units.  Doctors can see patients and start medical
        treatment on-site.
     -- Bus Incident Monitoring System and Automated Vehicle Location --
        Cameras on VIA Metropolitan Transit buses provide added security for
        bus drivers and passengers.  Personnel at the TransGuide center can
        monitor on-board incidents, detect bus locations and gather other
        realtime travel information.
     -- In-Vehicle Navigation Unit (IVN) -- TransGuide can tell IVN equipped
        vehicles the best way to get from point A to point B, any time, based
        on realtime traffic conditions.  Over 590 IVN Units have been placed in
        city, county, state and federal vehicles.
     -- Advance Warning to Avoid Railroad Delay (AWARD) -- Designed to alert
        motorists of potential railroad operation delays near freeway exits.
     -- Traveler Information Kiosk -- Interactive touch screen units featuring
        current traffic conditions, turn-by-turn directions, VIA bus schedules,
        San Antonio airport information, current weather conditions and five-
        day forecasts and points-of-interest maps.  Forty kiosks are located
        indoors and out at VIA Park and Ride locations, downtown San Antonio,
        college campuses, malls, hotels and military bases.
     -- Travel Tag -- Over 78,000 San Antonio motorists will be participating
        in the Realtime Travel Tag program by placing a small, credit-card size
        tag on their windshield behind the rearview mirror.  Every time a car
        with a travel tag drives under a designated sensor on various highways,
        the time, location and tag ID number is transmitted to TransGuide to
        help determine current travel times and speeds.  This information is
        critical to emergency vehicles as well as everyday commuters.
     -- Internet Current Traffic Conditions Map -- Visitors to TransGuide's
        website (www.transguide.dot.state.tx.us) can get current traffic
        conditions, including accidents and road construction delays, in San
        Antonio.

In October 1996, San Antonio was selected as one of four sites in the United
States and received $7.1 million for a Model Deployment Initiative (MDI). Other
cities include Seattle, Phoenix and New York.

TransGuide's project partners include the Texas Department of Transportation,
the City of San Antonio (police/fire/EMS/traffic) and VIA Metropolitan Transit.

SOURCE: Texas Department of Transportation


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Dear Colegas Transport-Communications,

The Web of Legazpi, of the virtual community of the transport of Spain,  it
exists to serve to the professionals of transports in the European Union,
the loads, returns, trucks and facilitating the commercialization of the
transport via Internet.

We are specially strong in Spain.

We looked for all the collaborations and aids that offer our colleagues to
us of Europe.

We offer our service of two ways:
Gratuitous http://www.legazpi.com/pizarra
Professional: http://www.legazpi.com/zona

Your disposition had left.

" GOOD BUSINESSES MAKE GOOD FRIENDS "

Pd.Este message this made up of a translator on-line for that reason I
request you excuse the lack to you for expression.

Antonio LLanos
webmaster www.legazpi.com

Thansk Bernie :-)



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Jessica,

I would be happy to meet with someone from the Red Cross.  If you'd like
to have them contact me at 802-651-4739 ext 153, I can set up a time and
date with them.

I hope we will be able to share some information with them or most
certainly we can give them our programmer's telephone number who lives
here in the Burlington area.

Herb Fisher

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In-Vehicle Navigation Systems and Real-Time Traffic Help Bring Efficiency to
San Antonio

      SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 21, 1998--Tired of sitting in
traffic on the interstate?

      TransGuide, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) Advanced
Traffic Management System located in San Antonio, Texas offers a solution.
Designed to reduce congestion and enhance emergency care response time,
TransGuide is using in-vehicle navigation enhanced with real time traveler
information, interactive kiosks, as well as a host of other technologies, to
change the Alamo City for the better.

      Navigation Technologies Corp. (NavTech) is working closely with the TxDOT
and Southwest Research Institute at TransGuide on the development and
deployment of sophisticated Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) and
services.

      TxDOT equipped approximately 590 city, county, state and federal vehicles
with navigation systems. The systems are made by Alpine Electronics of America
and Zexel USA and use the NavTech(R) Database. These vehicles then can receive
broadcasts of real-time traffic data that is displayed on the navigation
system monitor. This added capability alerts the drivers to trouble spots and
enables them to use the navigation system to calculate alternate routes.

      The NavTech Database is used by every in-vehicle navigation system in
North America and the majority of systems in Europe that offer turn-by-turn
route guidance.

      "Having navigation systems in our public vehicles helps increase the
productivity and efficiency of city services," said David Rodrigues,
TransGuide operations manager. "This technology enables San Antonio vehicles
to quickly and accurately route to a location and avoid traffic incidents
along the way."

      Using local government vehicles to demonstrate the benefits associated
with navigation systems and real-time traffic information, TransGuide hopes
this project will be duplicated in other Texas cities and eventually made
commercially available to the public.

      "NavTech sees TransGuide as one of the most technologically advanced ITS
programs in the nation," said Harry Voccola, senior vice president, Navigation
Technologies. "San Antonio is setting an example for the implementation of
cutting-edge transportation solutions that has the attention of the entire ITS
industry."

      TransGuide is one of four public demonstrations of Intelligent
Transportation System deployments under the U.S. Department of Transportation-
sponsored $37.8 million Model Deployment Initiative program. ITS is the use of
computer and communications technologies to address several surface
transportation challenges, including congestion, travel safety and security,
and increasingly constrained transportation agency budgets.

About Navigation Technologies Corp.

      NavTech is a global company recognized as the premier supplier of
superior quality, continuously updated route guidance map databases for both
North America and Europe. The NavTech Database contains an extensive and
precise digital representation of the road network that provides the depth,
accuracy and coverage needed to enable turn-by-turn, door-to-door route
guidance.

      Applications using the NavTech Database include in-vehicle navigation
products, fleet management systems, personal navigation products, Web sites
and online services, kiosk-based directions, advanced traffic and traveler
information systems and Geographic Information Systems (GIS).

      NavTech headquarters: Corporate, Rosemont, IL; North America, Sunnyvale,
CA; Europe, Best, The Netherlands. In addition, NavTech has a customer support
center in Yokohama, Japan and more than 70 field offices and 800 employees
worldwide.

      Note to Editors: For additional information on NavTech, please visit the
NavTech Web site at http://www.navtech.com.

CONTACT:

Navigation Technologies

Hugh Drummond, 408/617-5107

drummond@...

or

TransGuide

Betty Taylor, 210/731-5223


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Hello Mr. Fisher.
Thank you for your response to my inquiry. I was wondering if you
would be willing to speak to a representative from the Red Cross (the
human services agency I was referring to in my post). Perhaps you
could lend some advice on record keeping, or perhaps your software
developer would be willing to work on something with them.
If you would be willing to do this, please email me with your contact
information and I will pass it along. Thanks so much.

Sincerely,
Jessica L. McCann
Information Specialist
Community Tranportation Association of America



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We own 50+ motorcoaches and we had a program written exclusively for our
use.  It's a very good program written in Access.  It keeps track of all
charters, does all our of billing and stores mileage in from point A to
point B.

At one point, we used a prepackaged program but it was never upgraded and
when the time came to try too we learned that because we did keep up with
the upgrades there was nothing they could do for us.

That's when we contacted a local programmer and had our Charter and Tour
programs written.  The tour program is not completed yet we still have
some work to do on it however it does keep all our of our reservations,
prints out the rooming lists for every hotel on the tour and also a
passenger list for every tour.  We also have the ability to pull certain
clients who do special tours with us.  Such as air tours, gamblers,
theatre goers, cruisers etc.

Herb Fisher
Director of Charters & Tours
Vermont Transit Co.

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Here is the article. Thanks for the heads up. -JB





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  July 20, 1998
Users Are Choosing Information
Over Entertainment on the Web
By JARED SANDBERG
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL


>From the moment the World Wide Web began to emerge as the first new mass
medium in a generation, legions of companies started spending millions of
dollars trying to turn it into the premier entertainment stage for the next
century.

Soon, computer screens were serving up a crude version of the "interactive
television" that media mavens had been promising for a decade: on-line news
and sports, on-line soap operas and TV guides, on-line interviews with
prime-time stars, Webzines on pop culture and music. The major broadcast
networks set up their own sites as outposts for promotion and news.
Microsoft Corp. divvied up its on-line fare into "channels" containing
"shows" -- usually with little more than text, still pictures and a bit of
sound.

Most of these efforts have been a costly and vexing flop, mainly because the
industry's vision for the medium has outraced technological capabilities.
Personal computers remain too poky at downloading even still images from the
Web, much less the full-motion video and sound that consumers expect.
Profits have been nonexistent, and "viewers" have been scarce relative to
other entertainment media.

That has many Web veterans wondering whether they got it wrong: Maybe the
medium isn't about entertainment. Maybe it is less like the television and
more like the telephone: a convenient means for communicating and for
retrieving information.

With the ubiquitous exception of pornography, which exploits the medium's
advantages of ready access and privacy, the Web has proved most useful to
consumers for practical uses such as free e-mail services, on-line Yellow
Pages, used-car price guides, maps with driving directions and the like.
Some of these dull-data sites are even achieving that rarity on the Web:
profits.

"It's a mistake to treat the Internet as an entertainment medium," says Ed
Bennett, who was president of the VH-1 cable channel for five years and
became president of Prodigy Inc. in 1995, hoping to add TV savvy to the
on-line service.

It soon became clear that downloading video and music on the Web was like
"pulling an elephant through a straw," he says. He invested $800,000 early
on in Stim, an edgy pop-culture Webzine that included articles such as
"Caught Up: The Tragedy of Bungee Jumping in a Thong." But Prodigy
executives weren't convinced that even this largely text-based effort would
work, and the company sold Stim back to its creators for a dollar early last
year. It hasn't put out an issue in nearly a year.

Hip Isn't Enough

Even simple, text-based entertainment outlets that don't require speedy
connections have had a hard time. Turner Network Television's Spiv went
defunct, and in recent months, well-regarded sites Word and Charged have
been forced to seek financial rescue. Text-based soaps have faltered, too,
such as the East Village, a site sponsored by Time Warner Inc. that delved
into the lives of tattooed, self-absorbed "twentysomethings." Other sites
that manage to draw people, such as multiplayer game sites, do so by letting
users communicate with each other, rather than simply entertain themselves.

The Web, which first appeared in 1993 as a graphics-and-pictures overlay of
the Internet, is far too young for its entertainment potential to be
dismissed outright. In the next few years, consumers could get speedier
hookups to the Web via souped-up phone lines, wireless and satellite links
and superfast modems hooked to cable-TV wires. Such improvements might
enable the redistribution of traditional forms of entertainment on the Web.

Broadcast.com Soars 3 1/2 Times From IPO Price

Even now, faith in the Web's entertainment potential springs skyward: On
Friday, an initial public offering of shares of Broadcast.com Inc., a
Dallas-based outfit that uses the Web to transmit video and radio coverage
of sports events and speeches, began trading at $18 and then soared to close
at $62.75.

Many experts, however, say it could be five to 10 years before the delivery
system catches up to the entertainment hype. "Until the technical
limitations change, it's never going to be an entertainment medium," says
James Docherty, the new-media president at Hachette Filipacchi Magazines, a
unit of Paris-based Lagardere SCA.

Until then, utility is in. Need to book a flight or find a stock quote? One
of the Internet's strengths is its ability to help consumers find the right
needle in a digital haystack of data. News, stock quotes and sports scores
are among the most popular categories of on-line content.

The Big Hurdle

Just one drawback: So far, consumers can perform an array of convenience
tasks without paying a cent. For now, most dull-data Web sites rely on
revenue from display ads as customers grab the information they want, or
they count on intangible financial returns in the form of cost savings. But
for some, that still may not be enough, and persuading consumers to pay for
the privilege of using their on-line services remains a challenge.

The Weather Channel's Web site isn't exactly a trove of fast-paced action
and suspense. But it tells you whether you should carry an umbrella today --
and it draws more traffic than CBS's "cbs.com" and ABC's "abc.com" sites
combined. Its traffic has more than doubled in each of the past two years,
and now nearly four million people visit each month, according to Relevant
Knowledge Inc., Atlanta, which tracks Web traffic. The Weather Channel's
numbers place it among the 30 most-popular outposts in a sea of roughly 10
million Web sites and counting. (All references to site visitor numbers and
rankings in this article come from Relevant Knowledge.)

The Web also is an ideal medium for comparison shopping by allowing users to
sift through far-flung data that can be instantly combined at the click of a
mouse. Jerry Kaplan, chief executive of on-line auction house Onsale Inc.,
went tire-kicking on-line for new cars recently and bought two. "In a matter
of 30 minutes, we were able to do research that would have taken us several
weeks," he says. "For me, the computer is a tool, not a toy."

Some businesses simply are better suited to the on-line environment.
Scanning classified ads in the newspaper can rob a person of valuable time;
on the Web, classified advertising is a natural, allowing people to speedily
reach beyond their local markets to check out cars, collectibles, even jobs.
Junglee Corp., a closely held start-up in Sunnyvale, Calif., creates
databases that combine the content of myriad rival sites touting, say, job
listings, to let people scan multiple data sources without having to visit
each individual destination.

This easy pinpointing of data drives the traffic swamping the Web site of
Kelley Blue Book Co. The closely held Irvine, Calif., company operates one
of the most graphically monotonous sites on the Internet: Used-car pricing
information. The Blue Book site, which went up in early 1996, is one of the
fastest-growing on the Web, tripling its audience in the past year to 1.5
million users.

Kelley says the site already is turning a profit, even though it spent less
than $5 million on the service. It takes in revenue by selling ads, selling
customer referrals to marketers such as Microsoft and NationsBank, and
renting out the company's used-car data to sites run by Ameritech Corp.,
Knight-Ridder Inc. and others.

A Reason to Visit

The average Internet user "would have little or no interest in going to our
site," says Kelley's director of marketing, Stephen Henson. "But when it's
time to put your car up for sale or buy a new one, we're indispensable." Mr.
Henson uses on-line resources himself to arrange the two or three trips he
takes a month. On the Internet, he finds information on air fares and hotel
rates that wasn't readily available to him before.

"All of that previously had to be done over the phone in a very tedious
way," says Terrell Jones, chief information officer of Sabre Group,
majority-owned by AMR Corp.

Sabre's travel-booking site, Travelocity, gets roughly two million visitors
a month. Users are drawn to features that aren't easily available off-line.
For instance, Travelocity will send users a pager message if their flight is
delayed. Even more popular, airlines and travel sites send e-mail
notification when fare discounts kick in for a specified destination. "You
couldn't do that in the physical world," Mr. Jones says. "You couldn't say,
call me when the fare changes."

Travelocity says it racked up more than $100 million in gross ticket sales
last year, making it the 51st-largest travel agency in the U.S., among
30,000, after just two years of business. It expects to double sales this
year as it adds 250,000 new customers a month to the site's three million
registered users, which is run with just 80 employees. The Web service still
faces a long journey before becoming profitable, though. Only 5% to 10% of
its visitors buy a ticket through the site; the rest plow through flight
times and pick up the telephone.

Custom-Made and Free

Travelocity earns fees from ticket sales, but most other sites make their
wares available without charging consumers a dime. The Mapquest site, run by
GeoSystems Global Corp., ranks as the 17th most-visited site on the Web,
welcoming more people than Walt Disney Co.'s, which recently ranked a
respectable 35th. Mapquest and its 35 employees lure more than five million
people a month; enter the departure and destination data, and the service
draws a custom-made map ready for printing. But while people readily pay for
a map at the gas station, Mapquest fears they won't do so on the Web.

"I'm not sure what the consumer tolerance would be for paying for this type
of service at this time," says Mapquest's chief operating officer, James
Thomas.

Mapquest takes in money by licensing its mapping services to other Web sites
and selling advertising on its own site. It is considering whether to charge
for additional trip-planning features, which would be aimed at business
users rather than consumers.

A few companies are trying to charge their customers directly, with some
signs of success. Dun & Bradstreet Corp. runs a Web site for credit reports
on businesses, charging users up to $85 for a report or a monthly
subscription fee of $25 for unlimited access. The information company has
barely advertised the service but now sells 100,000 reports a month, and the
number is growing 30% a month. That puts the Web effort "several million
dollars" in the black, says Barbara McCoy, an assistant vice president at
D&B.

Consumer Reports magazine began offering on-line subscribers access to its
ratings of appliances and other products this year, charging them $2.95 a
month, or up to $24 for annual subscriptions. More than 100,000 paying
customers have signed up in just seven months.

Still, the likelihood that consumers will balk at paying leads many Web
watchers to say the real returns from sleep-inducing data services lie in
efficiency. In the near term, "cost savings is where all the immediate
return on investment is. Revenue generation is the after-the-fact gravy,"
says Mike James, a vice president at Federal Express Corp.

FedEx now runs one of the more popular -- and dullest -- sites on the Web,
receiving 1.7 million package-tracking requests a month. The company figures
40% of that traffic would have dialed an 800 number to do the same thing,
and consultants say handling each call typically costs about a dollar. The
Web site saves FedEx up to $8 million a year in customer-support costs.

Likewise, Cisco Systems Inc. uses its corporate Intranet to buy everything
from landscaping services to hand tools and paper clips. The system has "no
sex appeal," concedes Carolyn DePalmo, procurement automation manager at
Cisco. But it cost only about $5 million to set up, and Cisco can save that
sum within a year by cutting the cost of each procurement from $150 off-line
to just $10 on-line.

The Phone Book Is Hot

Even some executives at entertainment companies are taking note. At Time
Warner's Pathfinder site, the "bread and butter" is information that changes
fast, like stock quotes and sports scores, says Daniel Okrent, new-media
editor at Time Inc. "News for us has been growing much faster than what
you'd call entertainment," he says. "The telephone book is a lot more
popular than any John Grisham bestseller."

Indeed, phone books become easy-to-read search engines when they are put
on-line, serving up a hard-to-find number in seconds. Four11 Corp., a unit
of Yahoo! Inc., routinely draws more viewers than Web outposts from major
media companies such as the CNN news channel and ESPN's Sportszone. Four11
offers phone numbers, e-mail addresses and free e-mail accounts to almost
five million visitors a month. What's so cool about that?

"It's not cool, it's just frigging useful," says Jeff Mallett, Yahoo's chief
operating officer. "Period. End of story. God bless it."

Return to top of page | Format for printing
Copyright © 1998 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Personal Path


-----Original Message-----
From: I95BERNIEW@... <I95BERNIEW@...>
To: transport-communications@...
<transport-communications@...>
Date: Monday, July 20, 1998 10:13 AM
Subject: [transport-communications] Information, not entertainment, valued
on Internet


>An article on the front page of Monday's "Wall Street Journal" may be of
>interest to those who are involved with providing transportation
information
>via the World Wide Web.  The focus of the story is that sites that provide
>dull, but useful information have been quite popular with Internet users
>versus more flashy entertainment driven sites.
>
>There are a couple of references to transportation related sites including
>Mapquest (Internet mapping and driving directions) and Travelocity (travel
>planning and reservations).
>
>Among the points made in the story are:
>
>The Internet allows people to easily find the information they need in a
vast
>sea of data.
>
>Getting customers to pay for data is a challenge.
>
>There has been success with offerings that are unavailable through other
>media, such as e-mail notification of updated information.
>
>If anyone on the list has experience with providing transportation
information
>via the World Wide Web I encourage you to share it with the rest of the
group.
>
>The Wall Street Journal's Web page (http://wsj.com) only provides the text
of
>stories to subscribers, but they do offer a free sample period.
>
>Bernie Wagenblast
>
>
>----
>Read this list on the Web at
http://www.FindMail.com/list/transport-communications/
>To unsubscribe, email to transport-communications-unsubscribe@...
>To subscribe, email to transport-communications-subscribe@...
>--
>Start a FREE E-Mail List at http://makelist.com !
>
>




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Are there any small transportation agencies out there (approx. 30 rides
per week) that use automated record keeping? Since most scheduling
software is so expensive, many agencies use paper and pencil or
spreasheets/databases. Does anyone have any experience with this?
I was wondering: What do some agencies use? Are they satisfied with
their methods?
Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks.
Jessica McCann
Information Specialist
Community Tranpsportation Association of America


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An article on the front page of Monday's "Wall Street Journal" may be of
interest to those who are involved with providing transportation information
via the World Wide Web.  The focus of the story is that sites that provide
dull, but useful information have been quite popular with Internet users
versus more flashy entertainment driven sites.

There are a couple of references to transportation related sites including
Mapquest (Internet mapping and driving directions) and Travelocity (travel
planning and reservations).

Among the points made in the story are:

The Internet allows people to easily find the information they need in a vast
sea of data.

Getting customers to pay for data is a challenge.

There has been success with offerings that are unavailable through other
media, such as e-mail notification of updated information.

If anyone on the list has experience with providing transportation information
via the World Wide Web I encourage you to share it with the rest of the group.

The Wall Street Journal's Web page (http://wsj.com) only provides the text of
stories to subscribers, but they do offer a free sample period.

Bernie Wagenblast


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The following was sent to me and may be of interest to some folks involved in
the in vehicle side of the business.

NASA TECHNOLOGY LEADS TO INNOVATIVE
VEHICLE TRACKING SYSTEM

      A NASA technology developed to help astronomers probe the depths of
the universe is at work today helping municipalities and private
businesses track the movements of vehicles in large fleet operations.

      Researchers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL,
first developed the technology -- a software program -- to handle the
flow of enormous amounts of information.  The challenge was posed by
data generation of experiments conducted in orbit on Space Shuttle
Spacelab missions.

      The technology was later modified to help Marshall test NASA's
Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF), the world's most powerful
X-ray observatory, planned for launch later this year.  Marshall
engineers Walter Robinson and Larry Taormina worked with engineers from
Quality Research of Huntsville to modify the original program so it
would pull specific bits of temperature and vacuum information from the
stream of information collected in tests of the observatory.

      "We were faced with trying to find specific data 'needles' in a
vast information 'haystack' that was moving at the speed of light," said
Scott Johnson, a software architect with Quality Research.

      As it does with many of the technologies NASA develops for space
exploration, Marshall's technology transfer office offered the
technology for commercial application, hoping it might improve the
quality of life on Earth.  In a commercial spinoff of the NASA developed
software, AVL Systems of Huntsville created the Quality Research (QR)
Track System -- to track vehicles instead of information.

      Charles M. Musitano, AVL Systems president and chief executive
officer, said the system is affordable and has many applications in the
public and private sector.
"For between $500 and $1000 and a nominal annual maintenance fee,
municipalities can track police and fire vehicles, ambulances and public
works vehicles," said Musitano.  "Each vehicle transmits a signal to the
base station through one of several communications devices."

       Musitano said the city of Memphis, TN, uses the system to track
sludge pumping trucks for maintaining the city's sewer system.  "A
dispatcher monitors the location of all vehicles, determines when each
vehicle operator's task is completed, and reassigns the vehicle to new
tasks," said Musitano.

      The system can monitor many types of vehicle fleet operations
including delivery vans, armored cars and taxis.  It also can help track
vehicles carrying hazardous cargo.  "When accidents occur, emergency
response crews traveling with equipment to handle the hazardous material
can respond much more quickly.  If an evacuation of the area is
necessary, that decision can be made much sooner.  The system also can
be used to monitor railroad tank cars, ships and aircraft," Musitano
pointed out.

      Musitano also believes the technology has potential uses in vehicle
theft prevention and recovery, locating school vehicles and as a tool to
help emergency crews locate lost hikers.  "Using a two-way interchange
of data, exact locations can be used to assist in emergency recovery,"
Musitano said.


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Two Million Calls Logged to Traveler Information Service

      CINCINNATI--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 7, 1998--The regional traffic management
system for the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky area, ARTIMIS, recently logged the 2
millionth call to its traveler advisory service known as SmarTraveler(R). Calls
to ARTIMIS (Advanced Regional Traffic Interactive Management and Information
System) have helped travelers plan their trip, avoid traffic jams, and alleviate
the number of calls usually received by police after an accident is broadcast
over the radio.

      "In the last 10 months alone, the average number of calls per month to
SmarTraveler(R) has doubled from 50,000 to more than 100,000," said Scott Evans,
TRW program manager for ARTIMIS. "This is further evidence of the value ARTIMIS
offers the traveling public and demonstrates the confidence level the citizens
have in the system."

      The goals of the ARTIMIS system, which began in 1995, are to improve
traffic flow, reduce air pollution, reduce congestion from interstate
reconstruction projects, and increase motorist safety.

      Available as a free call from cellular or land-line phones by dialing 211,
the system provides up-to-the minute, route specific traffic conditions and
construction information about freeways in the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky
region. Since June 1995 when the traveler advisory service was launched as part
of the ARTIMIS system, there has been a steady growth in caller frequency.

      Kentucky Transportation Secretary James Codell praises the teamwork of
several local and national agencies: "ARTIMIS has already proved to be an
efficient and effective Intelligent Transportation System. It's made the
difference in the smooth flow of traffic during several recent interstate
incidents. ARTIMIS can and does significantly reduce travel time for local
motorists during unforeseen delays."

      The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, the Ohio Department of Transportation,
the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments, the Federal Highway
Administration, and the city of Cincinnati have formed a partnership in June
1993 to implement the ARTIMIS program. SmartRoute Systems of Cambridge, Mass.,
provides the SmarTrveler(R) service under contract to TRW. TRW is the prime
contractor responsible for developing and managing the system.

      TRW Inc. (NYSE:TRW) provides advanced technology products and services for
the automotive, space and defense, and information technology markets worldwide.
The company's sales in 1997 were approximately $12 billion (including the recent
BDM acquisition). The company's news releases are available through TRW's
corporate web site (http://www.trw.com/).

CONTACT:

TRW

Marynoele R. Benson, 703/803-5352

or

Kentucky Transportation Cabinet

Liz Sharlot, 502/564-4890



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Perhaps some of the other agencies on this list have had to deal with how to
respond to e-mail from customers.  We are still learning how best to handle the
modest flow of messages we are getting.  Those
of you who are also working with this might find the following story from the
N.Y. Times of interest.  I've included the begining of the article and the Web
address for more info.

NYTimes (requires free-to-US-residents registration):
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/07/biztech/articles/06mail.html

We Got Your E-Mail; Just Don't Expect  a Reply
           By PAMELA LiCALZI O'CONNELL

Some dare call it electronic commerce.

A major consumer products company logged 264,000 telephone calls to its customer
service center in a recent month and handled 225,000 in what it considered
satisfactory fashion -- a "close" rate of 85 percent.

And during the same period, the center's service representative received about
20,000 customer
e-mail messages via the Internet.

Just 2,000 -- a measly 10 percent -- received attentive replies, and some not
for several weeks. (This data was shared on the condition that the company not
be identified.) < clip >


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Perhaps some of the other agencies on this list have had to deal with how to
respond to e-mail from customers.  We are still learning how best to handle the
modest flow of messages we are getting.  Those
of you who are also working with this might find the following story from the
N.Y. Times of interest.  I've included the begining of the article and the Web
address for more info.

NYTimes (requires free-to-US-residents registration):
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/07/biztech/articles/06mail.html

We Got Your E-Mail; Just Don't Expect  a Reply
           By PAMELA LiCALZI O'CONNELL

Some dare call it electronic commerce.

A major consumer products company logged 264,000 telephone calls to its customer
service center in a recent month and handled 225,000 in what it considered
satisfactory fashion -- a "close" rate of 85 percent.

And during the same period, the center's service representative received about
20,000 customer
e-mail messages via the Internet.

Just 2,000 -- a measly 10 percent -- received attentive replies, and some not
for several weeks. (This data was shared on the condition that the company not
be identified.) < clip >


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The June issue of "Roads & Bridges Magazine" (http://www.roadsbridges.com) has
a good article discussing the importance of communicating with the public
about highway construction and maintenance projects.

The article is written from the perspective of those doing the road work and
discusses such topics as improving worker safety in construction zones, the
importance of communicating with highway users to improving relationships and
restoring credibility and means to share information with the public.

The story is the part one of a four part series and is based on a workshop
held by the National Asphalt Pavement Association (http://www.hotmix.org) and
the Federal Highway Administration.  You can order a copy of the twenty page
booklet "Report of Customer Oriented Highway Construction Workshop" through
the NAPA Web site.

Bernie Wagenblast


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If the government ever really tried to collect traffic information and
disseminate it tot he public properly, the traffic services would be out of
business!!  HOWEVER, in my 20 years of broadcasting, I can say I have rarely
found any one single agency capable of doing this well.  Nevermind when you
have a large tri state area like New York City.   There are even toll roads
here that do not want the commuting public to detour off their roads for the
fear of losing the 35 cents per car.

JB


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Looking at the transportation communications business for a number of
years, I've often thought there are a number of similarities between it
and weather information.

In both industries, much of the raw information is gathered by
government.  In the case of weather, at least in the U.S., that
information is made available to the public free of charge.  A number of
companies take the raw information provided by the government and then
package it in customized formats and sell it to clients.  This
information is sometimes supplemented with additional data the company
gathers.

In the transportation information business, government, at least in some
locations, is looking to sell this information rather than making it
widely available free of charge.  I can understand charging private
companies a fee for communication costs to send the information to the
private firm, but if the costs for gathering this information is already
being paid with tax or toll money should government being charging for
the information or are its interests best served by making the
information as widely available as possible?

Have there been any cases where fees have been challenged?

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Hello,

As a way of initiating conversation on transportation communications, Bernie
asked if I would describe some of the ITS projects in the Baltimore area, where
I work on ITS planning for the metropolitan planning organization staff
(Baltimore Metropolitan Council).

In the Baltimore region, we are currently working on an ITS Early Deployment
Plan.  Phase I of the project culminates with a Strategic Deployment Plan for
regional deployment of ITS which identifies nine projects on which to focus
initially.  Phase II of the project will involve the initial deployment of one
or more
projects identified in the Strategic Deployment Plan that address the most
urgent needs of the region.

The EDP process identified information sharing, traveller information, incident
management, and improved emergency communications as some of the most
pressing regional transportation needs.  Projects to expand incident
management/improve emergency communications and to develop an
information exchange system for information sharing among agencies will be
partially deployed in Phase II.  We are also looking into developing a
multimodal traveller information system.  All of these projects, as well as the
six others, rely heavily on communication technologies.  If anyone has any
lessons learned to share, I'm definitely interested in your experiences with
these types of projects.

The EDP is our first regional ITS initiative.  We expect to begin Phase II
activities this summer.  So, I am trying now to learn all that I can about
communication technologies.

The Baltimore region already has in place various ITS projects that use
communication technologies.  The Maryland State Highway Administration
operates a state-wide program called CHART (Chesapeake Highway Advisories
Routing Traffic) which performs surveillance, incident response, traveller
information, and traffic management.  Closed circuit tv, variable message signs,
highway advisory radio, weather stations, and signal systems are some of the
technologies used by CHART.  Several of the jurisdictions in the region have
also deployed some of these technologies.  In addition, Howard County, MD, is
conducting an operational test of digital red light running detection cameras
from four different vendors.  This is the first use of digital red light running
cameras in North America.

Not long ago, the State of Maryland conducted an ITS Telecommunications
analysis to study the requirements, options, and cost for CHART.  The US DOT
developed a Professional Capacity Building course which details the study
methodology and report findings.  Some of the report findings include:
1. a hybrid network using both owned fiber and leased lines would save $23.6
million when compared to a fully owned fiber optic network
2. compressed digital video produces images of sufficient quality for all
current
traffic monitoring activities
3. telecommunications costs could not be predicted based on published tariffs
because increasing competition and new technology result in continually
decreasing costs.

Regards,
Eileen Singleton

______________________________
Eileen Singleton
Baltimore Metropolitan Council
601 N. Howard St
Baltimore MD 21201
(410) 333-1750 ext. 236 (ph)
(410) 333-0160 (fax)
esingleton@...


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>What do you see as some of the pressing issues concerning communications in
the transportation industry?  Do you view improving communications in the
business as primarily a technological issue or is it more a "people" issue?
>

In the work I am involved in (ITS for rural and weather programs), an
underlying issue seems to be  with risk perceptions, which is a "people"
issue. This can apply to safety or routing advisories.

In the case of advisories, which are short, event-specific, messages, to a
number of travelers, non-homogeneity of response has divergent effects on
behavior.  In the case of safety, one would like uniform response, e.g. to a
"icy road" or "fog-reduced visibility" advisory, or for that matter to any
speed limit.  Non-uniformity can increase safety threats.  Response probably
has to do with risk perceptions, of the visible environment supplemented by an
advisory.  There will always be outlier respondents, and perhaps reduction of
the variance of response is more important than the magnitude of response.

In the case of travel advisories, especially for congested links, the
non-uniformity of behavior may keep route assignments from being
unstable--e.g. if every one took an alternate route and hence made the
alternate worse than the original assignment.  In general, uncertainty in
future conditions can be mitigated by a distribution of responses, that again
are essentially responses to perceived risk of a situation and its
alternative.

Gary Nelson



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With the Transport Communications list now a week old I'd like to throw out some
general questions to spark some discussion.

What do you see as some of the pressing issues concerning communications in the
transportation industry?  Do you view improving communications in the business
as primarily a technological issue or is it more a "people" issue?

Are there experiences you've had that are especially good examples of how
transportation communications should work, or might there be projects you're
involved in that you'd like to share with others on the group?

These questions are general in nature, but hopefully they'll start the flow of
dialogue on the list and allow us to get to know one another.

Bernie Wagenblast


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Hi everyone,

Thank you all for your patience as I try to get the hang of how to work this
list.  It's been a week since the list was created and I'm happy to say we're
up to 35 members as of noon Sunday on the east coast of the U.S.  I believe
the value of the list will only increase as more people involved in transport
communications participate in the list so I encourage you to let others who
might be interested know about the list and how to join.

I've had a few questions about why the list is moderated.  When I created the
list I chose to moderate it because I was concerned that someone might try to
use the list to send some of the spam I've seen on other unmoderated lists;
everything from get quick rich schemes to sexually explicit postings.  I
didn't want that to happen to our list.

However there have also been some problems with folks trying to post messages
and I've had to post messages for others.  That wasn't supposed to happen.

I've converted the list to be unmoderated.  That SHOULD allow everyone who is
a member of the list to post directly.  To post a message you have to first
join the list.  That should prevent the type of spam I was concerned with.
The archives for the list are only available to those who have joined the
list.  That should also limit someone coming in and invading your privacy by
reading your messages to the group.

Again, thank you all for joining the list and letting me "learn on the job"
how to run the it.  I look forward to some good dialogue as we move ahead.

Bernie


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The purpose of this list is to provide a forum for anyone with an interest in
transportation communications.  This includes a wide variety of topics such as:
public and community relations, ATIS (Advanced Traveler Information Systems),
signage and broadcast traffic services.  Virtually any topic related to
communications as it's related to the field of transportation (all modes) is
included.

If you have questions please contact Bernie Wagenblast at brwagenblast@....



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