As we have posted about before, Dynamic Transit Passenger Assignment (DTPA) has no shortage of challenges to explore. Within this project, the Team decided to move forward with the models and frameworks that we had (despite their issues), while pursuing a separate Research Track that identified high-priority research needs in order to make DTPA useful in practice. The Project Team convened a Research Expert Panel, which undertook completed the following three steps:

1. Developed a shared understanding of issues affecting DTPA in practice (TRB Paper)
2. Conducted a literature review of relevant research in order to understand what problems had already been solved and what was outstanding
3. Identified high-priority research needs

The panel arrived at the following research needs that were also supported by the practitioners:

• Efficient and Effective Path Search Algorithms for Transit
• Service Unreliability in Schedule-Based Dynamic Transit Trip Assignment
• Empirically Valid and Computationally Efficient Transit Passenger Route Choice Model

We hope that defining and highlighting these research needs will promote an effective cycle from Practitionerville back to Academia in order to better evaluate current issues affecting transit planning.

We are looking for additional input as well as support for these high-priority research needs. We’d love your help!

• Submit your feedback on these research needs and how to fund them using the disqus comments below
• Comment on and suggest edits to the research needs statements themselves.