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importance to the design and planning of DRT systems, before their implementation,
thus overcoming the current lack of analytical tools to this end.
DRT systems provide transport on demand from users, using flexible schedules
and routes to satisfy their travel needs. A DRT system operationally receives trip
requests either for an immediate service or as an advanced reservation and organizes
routes and schedules (e.g. using OR methodologies) to accommodate trip requests
aiming to respond in real time to user's mobility needs. At the design phase of the
DRT system, no real information exists yet on its functioning, so it is considered as a
strategic and tactical decision process.
On the other hand, even after implementation, there is a lack of research work into
evaluation methods and definition of real time evaluation and monitoring systems [4].
Nowadays, a particular focus is given to three fundamental broader categories of
performance measures (or indicators) - economic, social and environmental. This
categorization is obviously related to recent concerns about the sustainability of exist-
ing and new projects (e.g., for DRT, [5-6]).
The absence of measurement limits organizations ability to evaluate the changes
and therefore precludes systematic improvement. Thus, good performance measures
are a necessity for any progressive organization to recognize successful strategies and
discard the unsuccessful.
2.1
Performance Measurement in Transportation Systems
The evaluation of the systems performance and all related decision making processes
are based on the knowledge and analysis of quantitative and qualitative measures,
usually named performance indicators. In this section, it is reported, in a broader per-
spective, the set of these indicators that may be relevant in transportation systems in
general, and DRT in particular.
Performance measurement is a way of monitoring progress towards a result or
goal. It is also a process of gathering information to make well-informed decisions.
Traditionally, performance measures have been largely technical in nature. How-
ever, today transportation executives and managers must address an increasingly
complicated and wide-ranging set of issues regarding the best solutions on balance to
transportation problems, the cost-effectiveness of proposed projects and estimated
impacts of those projects.
Based on the literature related to performance measurement systems for transporta-
tion, there is a large number of measures within the following categories: preservation
of assets, mobility and accessibility, operations and maintenance, and safety.
The Transportation Research Board had developed a framework [7] that transporta-
tion organizations should use in order to:
identify performance measures that are most useful for asset management:
assessing existing performance measures that are in place, identifying gaps,
and considering new measures to fill gaps;
integrate these performance measures effectively within the organization: en-
gaging stakeholders to ensure buy-in, designing families of measures that can
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