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Comprehensive Wayfinding for All (CWall)

Project Overview

What

This project, titled Comprehensive Wayfinding for All (CWall) will develop and test a prototype CWall smartphone application (app) that will provide transit and pedestrian trip planning and navigation assistance along the entire transit trip. CWall will aid users in locating bus stops (bus stops will be equipped with Bluetooth low-energy beacons), traveling to stops using accessible pedestrian pathways, obtaining real-time transit information, and receiving alerts for when to board and get off buses. Although CWall’s intended audience is users with visual and mobility impairments, the app will also benefit users without disabilities by reducing the learning curve of taking transit and making the sidewalk and transit network easier to understand and use. The Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) will lead the project and will partner with Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority in Austin, TX (Capital Metro) and two of Capital Metro’s contractors, including the Taskar Center for Accessible Technology (TCAT) for pedestrian pathway mapping and Knowbility for app accessibility testing.

Who

  • Principal Investigator: Michael J. Walk, M.S., TTI Research Scientist. [email protected]
  • Principal Research Firm: TTI.
  • Key Partners: Capital Metro, TCAT, and Knowbility.
  • Funding Agency: Grant funding provided by the Transit Cooperative Research Program Ideas Deserving Exploratory Analysis (TCRP IDEA) program. TCRP will also provide oversight. See http://apps.trb.org/cmsfeed/TRBNetProjectDisplay.asp?ProjectID=4615
  • Expert Review Panel: Group of individuals who will review project deliverables and stay in close oversight of the project.
    • Dottie Watkins, Vice President of Bus and Paratransit Services, Capital Metro, Austin, TX
    • Rasha Said, Founder, Sensible Innovations
    • Angela Miller, Director of Global Customer Solutions, Cubic
    • Patricia Collette, former Director and Research Scientist, KU Transportation Center

When

Major project milestones include (schedule subject to change):

  • Stage 1
    • Aug. 2018: Project kickoff, organize stakeholders, and collect and organize data.
    • Sept. 2018: Begin development of CWall app version 1 (alpha app).
    • Feb. 2019: Test CWall app version 1, assess project, and issue interim report.
  • Stage 2
    • Summer 2019: Develop CWall app version 2 (beta app) and conduct 2 pilot tests (downtown Austin and the Tech Ridge park-and-ride).
    • Fall 2019: Finalize CWall app and collect usage data.
    • Spring 2020: Prepare final report.

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