Driver Opinion of Message Requirements for Advanced Traveler Information Systems

Abstract

This experiment concerned the types of information travelers feel should be provided in Advanced Traveler Information System (ATIS) messages. Participants were provided with detailed hypothetical trip scenarios and were required to compose en route ATIS messages for each one. Two types of ATIS messages were included: “general messages,” appropriate for general traffic and limited in length (typical of variable message signing) and “personalized” messages, of unlimited length, tailored to the driver's own trip (representative of in-vehicle route planning and guidance products). Participants also indicated what information they considered to be most important, and indicated what their route choice would be in the given situation. The findings were analyzed in terms of message content (amount, type, and sequence of information items), item importance, and relationship to route choice. The results were found to have a number of implications for the design of ATIS messages.