From Tech Transfer Newsletter, Spring 2007 » printer-friendly

Tools to Make Transportation Research Easier

Bus Rapid Transit Clearinghouse

www.path.berkeley.edu/informationclearinghouse

The Bus Rapid Transit Clearinghouse is a web-based informational tool on bus rapid transit systems. It was recently developed by researchers at California Partners for Advanced Transit and Highways (PATH), a research unit of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California Berkeley. This project was a collaboration between PATH and the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), and the National Bus Rapid Transit Institute.

This web-based tool is a comprehensive first-stop resource for performing research and investigations on bus rapid transit systems. The Clearinghouse is organized into three parts: The Planning Support Tool, which guides users to written overviews of various BRT-related situations; the Publications Database, which offers access to fully abstracted records of published and publicly available materials from professional journals, technical and trade magazines, academic publications, conference proceedings, technical reports, government documents, and links to related website; and the BRT Resources section, which provides links to BRT-related websites, organizations, search engines, research databases, and technical information, assistance, and training resources.

Google's Customizable Search Engines

Google has created a new service that allows Internet users to build customized search engines. Using this new technology, transportation librarians and researchers from around the country have developed search engines that draw solely from selected transportation-specific resources. Currently available transportation-related search engines include:

Public Transit Agency Search Engine
Search across all major transit agency and transit related organization websites for fares, routes, data, reports, research, press releases, budgets, policies, programs, and other transit industry information.

State Departments of Transportation Search Engine
Search the websites of the Departments of Transportation from the fifty United States and the District of Columbia.

University Transportation Center Search Engine
Search transportation research located on university transportation center Web sites, including the U.S. Department of Transportation Research & Innovative Technology Administration's University Transportation Center (UTC) Program and the Council of University Transportation Centers (CUTC).

LTAP Center Search Engine
Search all 58 LTAP and TTAP Center websites (including the Tech Transfer Program's site).

Metropolitan Planning Organization Search Engine
Search the websites of members of the Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations (AMPO).

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