Tiramisu Supported Public Transit Riders and Research
Impact: 75,000 riders used this real-time mobile app
We worked with Pittsburgh transit and riders to develop a mobile application that made riders the co-creators of the service they desired. By sharing GPS location traces as the riders commuted, they collectively produced real-time arrival information that benefited all transit riders.
Our app provided a space where we could explore many different ideas, including how to motivate transit riders to share information, how mobile transit information impacts accessibility and supports more opportunistic travel for people with disabilities, and how an adaptive service that learns the patterns of users' rides can personalize their experience.
We developed a mobile, real-time arrival app for public transit that reduced the effort and uncertainty of travel, especially for people with disabilities.
This work led to...
- The Tiramisu app. Italian for "pick me up," the Tiramisu app was available in the Google and Apple app stores and supported 75,000 unique transit riders during its 10-year run in Pittsburgh. This was notably early work in this space, and for reference, the Port Authority of Allegheny County added on-bus tracking 7 years later in 2016.
- Using crowdsourced transit data to benefit the community. The team designed and built a system where users could use their mobile phones to report bus fullness and trace transit vehicles while onboard. Over the years, users provided over 200,000 crowdsourced contributions to the app, which directly benefited their fellow Pittsburgh travelers.
- A decade of transit accessibility research. The team learned that access to mobile information about specific buses — bus arrival time and seat availability — made it easier for travelers with disabilities to have awareness of upcoming buses and engage in opportunistic travel, reducing barriers and effort during trips. In later work, the team also showed that learning a rider's bus route preferences could be used to improve their experience. Version 3 of the app pre-filtered which transit information to show, thereby lowering user interaction effort for everyone, including screen reader users.
- Awards. Tiramisu received an innovation award from the Federal Trade Commission for work that improves accessibility. It also won second place in the 2011 “Best New Innovative Products, Services, or Applications” category from the Intelligent Transportation Society of America (ITSA).
Supported by: The National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR), within the Administration for Community Living (ACL) of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), previously as the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) within the Department of Education. Additional support was provided by the US Department of Transportation and the Traffic21 Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, a program developed with the support of the Hillman Foundation.
Timing: 2009-2022
Related work:
- Tiramisu Transit website
- "Field Trial of Tiramisu: Crowd-sourcing Bus Arrival Times to Spur Co-design" paper
- "Planning Adaptive Mobile Experiences When Wireframing" paper
Researchers: John Zimmerman, Aaron Steinfeld, and team
Research Areas: Accessibility & Assistive Technology, Social Computing
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