The operation of ITS in public transport service: guidelines for Public Authorities and operators

ITS (Intelligent Transport Systems) has increasingly captured the interest of the Public Administrations (Transport Executives, Mobility Agencies, Municipalities, etc) for mobility governance and Public Transport (PT) services (and for the emerging concept of “Smart City”). The overall aim of the paper is to show that the implementation of ITS technology itself is not enough to increase transport services performances as the objectives of ITS implementation and operational and organizational procedure impacts on system specifications. ITS for PT services (fleet control- AVM, e-ticketing systems and user information) are described outlining the role of AVM as a key system for service control and data production. The current market situation is analysed from the demand and offer sides, in order to outline and explain why sometimes ITS applications do not achieve the planned objectives. Some examples of the cross-relations among stakeholders' objectives and needs, service operation and system functionalities are provided. Finally the importance of the implementation of a feasibility study for guaranteeing full operating systems is described in terms of contents and actions.