Advanced traveler information systems : six criteria to facilitate public participation

Abstract

The population growth has given a lot of pressure to the transport infrastructure. Therefore, one of the challenges to transport authorities is to manage transport infrastructure efficiently. In Hong Kong, one of the major strategies to deal with this challenge is to encourage ridership on public transport. Besides, since 1990s, Hong Kong Government has been making use of technologies, like Advanced Traveler Information Systems (ATIS) to maximize road usage. However, the ATIS are being criticized for failing to disseminate timely traffic information to road users. And when considering the dominant percentage of public transport ridership in Hong Kong, the applications of ATIS on public transport are relatively fewer. Literature reviews that participation by the end users of the systems is an essential element for its success. In this research, it is argued that the lack of favourable criteria in public participation has led to the less-than-satisfactory ATIS systems in Hong Kong. Six criteria have been adopted in this research to assess how Hong Kong Government facilitates public participation in ATIS policy. By using the six criteria, the actual channels of public participation were first evaluated. This is to see how far they are away from the ideal situation. After that, a survey was conducted to examine how the public perceived the situation in terms of the six criteria. Basically, the results reflected that the Government has done satisfactorily to facilitate participation in particular criteria, such as timing of involving citizens, ease of communication. However, in terms of other criteria, which are sufficiency of information, respectfulness in participation, representativeness and understandability of the process, the Hong Kong Government still has lots of room of improvement to cooperate with society to achieve higher level of public participation.