Appendix A
Summary of US ATIS Update Report
Rick Schuman and Eli Sherer
(ATIS U.S. Business Models Review)
Summary and Recommendations
November 2001
In summary, it appears that we can infer a number of items from the
literature review and the interviews:
- Public funding or facilities, especially with regard to data collection,
is essential to a successful ATIS implementation. Any initiative that
increases the availability of quality data should be a national priority.
- The public sector may have the opportunity to sell its own wares, as
long as the data being sold is of sufficient quality and is on a level that the
private sector cannot gather similar data on their own. However, the value
of such data is likely to be relatively low at present and for the foreseeable
future. Any region looking to obtain private sector revenue substantial enough
to support its ITS investments is setting itself up for failure.
- Revenue generation from ATIS services, both wholesale and to the
individual, has not proven successfully that this revenue can wholly support an
ATIS service. There may be new models and new ventures determined to prove
this model viable, but they are unproven at this time.
- If there are specific traveler information services public agencies in a
region or state wish to provide to their traveling public, they should be
prepared to underwrite most or all of the cost. While it may be possible to
have such services provided for free as part of a partnership model, the
experiences indicate that as often as not, these services do not evolve to the
level of quality and use desired by the public sector unless they are either
operated in-house or contracted on a "fee for service" basis.
Finally, the authors of this report recommend that ITS America’s ATIS
Committee develop a process for regularly revisiting ATIS business models on a
regular basis. In particular, it would be highly beneficial to the community if
every region known to have an ATIS model is documented an updated on a regular
basis. As described earlier, 25 areas were identified as targets for updates,
but only 10 could be completed as part of this study.
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