Designing New Service Improvement: Intelligent
Online Travel Agent for Multimodal Transportation
Agung Bayu Aji (1806152861)
Post Graduate Program for Data and Quality Engineering
Industrial Engineering, Universitas Indonesia
Jakarta, Indonesia
agung.bayu@ui.ac.id
Abstract— In recent years, many service industries have
widely adopted information technology (IT) and big data to
enhance their operation in communication with their customer
or other industries. One example of that industries is
transportation industry with Intelligent Transportation System
(ITS) concept. Online Travel Agent (OTA) can has a powerful
support to ITS concept in Advanced Travelers Information
Systems (ATIS) category. Based on people behavior, we know
that to transit many cities, travelers must travel with many
vehicle combination to get the best route with minimum travel
time and cost. In this paper, we propose the additional feature
for OTS to be an Intelligent OTA (I-OTA) that can make
people easier to travelling with multimodal transportation.
This concept should be designed and trialed before full
launching.
Keywords—Intelligent Transport System, Multimodal
transportation, Online travel agent, Transportation
I. INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, many service industries have widely adopted
information technology (IT) to enhance their operation in
communication with their customer or other industries. One
example of that service industries is transportation industry
[1]. In recent years, the IT enhancement in service industry
produced big data that developed greatly and rapidly, which
provides new ideas and tools for smart management and
decision-making. The concept to implement the big data and
smart technologies in transportation industry known as
Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) [2].
ITS is a global phenomenon that now attract world
interest from transportation professionals, the automotive
industry and political decision makers [3]. Nowadays, many
cities are adopting increasingly advanced ITS that combine
connectivity, adaptation, coordination, and automated
response for transportation policy optimization, thus
increasing innovation, intelligence, and efficiency. There are
6 main category of ITS implementation: (1) Advanced
Traffic Management Systems (ATMS), (2) Advanced
Travelers Information Systems (ATIS), (3) Commercial
Vehicles Operation (CVO), (4) Advanced Public
Transportations Systems (APTS), (5) Advanced Vehicles
Control Systems (AVCS), and (6) Advanced Rural
Transports Systems (ARTS) [4].
One of main category of ITS is Advanced Travelers
Information System (ATIS) whose aim to support
transportation of goods and humans in order to safety and
efficiently use transportation means and infrastructure. As an
integral part of ITS, ATIS assists travelers with planning,
perception, analysis and decision-making to improve
convenience, safety, and efficiency of travel [5]. ATIS work
in two side, first side is infrastructure that aimed to capture
the transportation in real time condition such as CCTV,
XXX-X-XXXX-XXXX-X/XX/$XX.00 ©20XX IEEE
traffic sensor, etc. The first side give the information to
second side that located in travelers phone to give
information about real time transportation condition to
travelers in form of many maps application such as Google
Maps, Trafi, etc., and many Online Travel Agent (OTA)
such as Traveloka, Tiket.com, etc.
The maps application and OTA have contribution for
travelers to make a route and transportation planning.
Nowadays, travelers who want to visit some place will check
some of maps application to get best route and
transportation, then check the OTA to get the price and
purchase an electronic ticket. Based on this traveler’s
behavior that dependent to that application for travelling,
these maps application and OTA can easily get personal data
and capture behavior from each traveler. All data that maps
application and OTA get from all traveler can be form a big
data that we can get knowledge and hidden information to
make a continuous improvement to existing system.
Based on a transaction data sample that we get from four
OTA, we can get information that 45% data from the
transaction in 19 April 2019 are captured that they use
multimodal transportation (use combination of airplane and
train) to visit their destination. From this information, in this
paper, we want to design the improvement or innovation to
OTA that now only can suggest combination only for same
vehicle type (airplane and airplane, train and train) to an
Intelligent Online Travel Agent for Multimodal
Transportation that make OTA can help travelers to get
information about real time condition, get suggestion of route
and transportation planning using multimodal transport
(combination of many types of vehicles based on best price,
travel time, and historical of each traveler), and next to
purchase the one general e-ticket for many vehicle
combination from only one access.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) is a global
phenomenon that now attract world interest from
transportation professionals, the automotive industry and
political decision makers. ITS applies advanced information
technology to solve transportation problems such as traffic
congestion, safety, transportation efficiency and
environmental preservation [3]. There are 6 main category of
ITS implementation:
1) Advanced Traffic Management Systems (ATMS) :
Study and implement about traffic control devices,
ramp meters, traffic signals, traffic operations center.
2) Advanced Travelers Information Systems (ATIS) :
Study and implement about real-time information,
schedule, transit route, navigation, travel planning
that can accessed easily by transportation user.
 3) Commercial Vehicles Operation (CVO) :
Study about commercialize and managing vehicles,
control speed, transit stop for operational.
4) Advanced Public Transportations Systems (APTS) :
Study about public transportation, scheduling, crew
rostering, public transportation payment control
5) Advanced Vehicles Control Systems (AVCS) :
Study about vehicle-to-vehicle concept, control
sensor between vehicle, road safety.
6) Advanced Rural Transports Systems (ARTS).
Study about transportation in rural, with unique
attribute such as sleep grades, navigation curve,
alternative route.
As an integral part of ITS, ATIS assists travelers with
planning, perception, analysis and decision-making to
improve convenience, safety, and efficiency of travel. Refer
to people behaviour now that prefer use internet to perform
any activities anywhere, the OTA might have powerful
contribution to help traveler set and purchase their ticket for
travelling [6]. In previous research there are many service
innovation that developed in OTA to perform their e-service,
such as revealed many electronic payment scheme [7],
mobile bus ticketing services [8], ticket home delivery and
cash on delivery systems [6].
Other research in develop OTA feature is implementing
general ticket for public transport (bus and train) using card
in Switzerland [9]. That research study a multimodal
transportation concept that move a passenger or travellers
from previous destination as next origin to next destination
using different vehicles types. In Indonesia, a multimodal
transportation are used only in route planning that we can
accessed in Google Maps now. This paper wants to show a
concept of implementing General Ticket Purchasing for
Multimodal Transportation as additional features in existing
OTA.
III. METHODOLOGY
In this paper, we use evaluation of New Service
Development with goals apply existing knowledge to
problems related to improve a current service or process in
cycle below [1]:
Fig. 1. The New Service Development Process Cycle [1]
Based on existing condition and personal behavior of
people who wants to travel and plan their travel with OTA,
we want to develop a new business process model through
additional feature of OTA. These ideas form the input to the
“development” stage of the new service development (NSD)
cycle shown in Figure 1.
The first step is design and prepare the outer circle in
process cycle. In the development stage of a new service,
new ideas are screened, developed, and tested for feasibility.
If the concept pass the development process, then continue to
“analysis” stage to determine their potential business. After
project authorization, successful concepts move to the
“design” stage. Considerable time and money are expended
in design to create a new service product and process that can
be field tested for many selected member. Finally, a proven
new service is already go live or full launch.
The second step is prepare the service product enablers
displayed in inner circle that consist of Product, People,
System, Technology.
The third step is set the service design elements. These
design elements must be engineered to create a consistent
service offering that achieves the strategic service vision.
The service design elements become a template that
communicates to customers and employees alike what
service they should expect to give and to receive. The
elements should be follow:
- Structural Elements : Delivery System, Facility Design,
Location, Capacity Planning
- Managerial Elements : Information, Quality, Service
Encounter, Managing Capacity and Demand
The fourth step is set the Strategic Positioning through
Process Structure. In this step, we should prepare the service
blueprint to develop a service process structure that will
show us the position from our innovation the competitive
market. Service blueprint is a precise definition of the service
delivery system that allows management to test the service
concept on paper with trial-and-error effort and minimum
cost before any final commitments are made. The design is
captured on likely-architectural drawings called blueprints,
because the reproduction is printed on special paper, creating
blue lines. A service delivery system also can be captured in
a visual diagram and used in a similar manner for the design
of services. The steps and sequences in the process captured
by the service blueprint and measured by the number and
intricacy of the steps represent the degree of complexity of
the service delivery structure. Decisions still remain on the
degree. After trial the service blueprint, the next flow is
repositioning to get the best strategic positioning through
process structure.
IV. DESIGNING THE SERVICE IMPROVEMENT
In this paper, we want to improve one stakeholder that
support one of the ITS category: Advance Travelers
Information Systems (ATIS) that is Online Travel Agent
(OTA). Nowadays, OTA has a powerful support to travelers
that wants to plan their travelling (usually for transportation
and accommodation). But, if we want to plan our travelling
with multimodal transportation, we need to search, purchase,
and get e-ticket separately for each vehicle types.
A. Additional Feature for Intelligent Online Travel Agent
Based on personal behavior (captured in 100 transactions
sample data that we analyze in previous paper), people wants
to travel many place with different vehicles type access. So,
we want to add a new services for the market presently
served with a new business process model through additional B. Service Product Enablers
feature of OTA to be an Intelligent OTA (I-OTA) as follows: Service product enablers displayed in inner circle of
1) Multimodal Transportation Suggestion process is some stakeholders that make the service systems
Now, people already can access and try this feature run consist of:
on Google Maps or Trafi. If we want to know the 1) Product : I-OTA (include additional features)
access from our origin to our destination, Google and 2) People : Software engineer, System analyst,
Trafi can suggest the best route and best vehicles Travelers, Principal of modal (airline/train
combination based on shortest time travelling in real- provider/bus provider/online transportation)
time condition. But, Google and Trafi can’t give us 3) System : Transportation system, Traffic system,
the ticket if in the suggested route we should go with Ticket purchasing system, Payment gateway system
public transportation. If that feature is applied or
4) Technology : Maps, IT Hardware (such as cloud
integrated in OTA whose have capabilities in
purchase an e-ticket, travelers can only access 1 server, etc), IT Software (application and algorithm)
application only (I-OTA) and can get the best route C. Service Design Elements
and vehicles combination with best travel time and
The elements for this I-OTA are defined below:
best price respectively and also can continue to ticket
purchasing. In example, if we want to travel from TABLE II. SERVICE DESIGN ELEMENTS
Sudirman, Jakarta to Wonokromo, Surabaya, I-OTA
will give us suggestion to travel use table below. Structural Elements
1. Delivery System Integrated General Ticket replaced
Existing separated ticket
TABLE I. EXAMPLE OUTPOUT FROM I-OTA
2. Facility Design Intelligent Travel Plan as a facility
Travel from I-OTA
Origin Destination Vehicle
Time 3. Location Same as existing OTA
Soekarno Hatta 4. Capacity Planning Integrated passenger quota for each
Sudirman Baru Airport Train
Airport Station 59m vehicle
Station (SDB) (Railink)
(CGK) Managerial Elements
Soekarno Hatta 5. Information Information from Google Maps
Juanda Airport Flight 1h
Airport Station 6. Quality Quality of the suggested route and
(SUB) (Airplane) 30m
(CGK) vehicles
Juanda Airport Purabaya Bus Airport Shuttle
19m 7. Service Encounter Tutorial for first approach and best
(SUB) Terminal (BUN) Bus (DAMRI)
marketing
Purabaya Bus Halte Wonokromo
Suro Boyo Bus 12m 8. Managing Capacity Integrated passenger quota for each
Terminal (BUN) (WO)
and Demand vehicle that can maximize yield for
all entity
2) Intelligent Travel Plan
I-OTA also can improved with intelligent algorithm D. Service Blueprint
that can suggest travelers their travel plan not only for Service blueprint is a precise definition of the service
best travel time and best price. But also can suggest delivery system that allows management to test the service
based on their historical data. People can see this concept on paper before any final commitments are made.
algorithm while using Google Search. Google will The blueprint also facilitates problem solving and creative
show us link that we often access it. Google usually thinking by identifying potential points of failure and
show us the advertisement for product that we often highlighting opportunities to enhance customers’ perceptions
search or buy in online shop or OTA. of the service. Below is a service blueprint for I-OTA
3) Integrated General Ticket (IGT) concept:
Integrated General Ticket allows the use of most Physical TRAVEL TICKET GET
public transportation facilities with only one ticket or Evidence PLANNING PURCHASING TICKET
travel pass. The buying behavior for public transport Customer Open OTA and Purchase Get
general tickets underlies a complex decision process. Action fill form ticket or not IGT
This feature already implemented in many Europe Line of interaction
country, e.g. Switzerland [9]. There aren’t Application Form Show best Payment Print
implemented In Indonesia, but in Indonesia we have frontend processed result page IGT
NFC Card (only for some train & bus) and separate Line of visibility
ticket for each vehicle types as output from OTA Application Find best route & vehicles Payment
(usually compiled in one ticket if choose same airline backend based on algorithm process
in connecting flight). Line of internal
interaction
This new idea is after plan their travel, people can go Check ticket Payment process
to purchase and get one e-ticket or travel pass that Support
availability to provider to provider
process
contained information of schedule, route, and vehicle
types so can be used for all transportation mode. The Fig. 2. The I-OTA Service Blueprint
design would be shown in Appendix 1.
E. Go Live / Launching
The Go Live process is conducted after many service
blueprint trialed and tested. The repositioning is used before
Go Live or Launching to set the best position of this service
product.
V. CONCLUSION
Study showed that we have any improvement to
implemented in Online Travel Agent based on Indonesian
people behavior. This paper showed design of the
improvement of OTA to an I-OTA that can help travelers to
get information about real time condition, get suggestion of
route and transportation planning using multimodal transport
(combination of many types of vehicles based on best price,
travel time, and historical of each traveler), and next to
purchase the one general e-ticket for many vehicle
combination from only one access. The service blueprint of
this concept must be trialed or tested before go to full
launching.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This paper is proposed as perquisite for completing
Service Engineering Course in 2nd Semester Post Graduate
Program in Data and Quality Engineering. I would say thank
you to both lecturer, Mrs. Prof. Ir. Isti Surjandari Prajitno,
MT, MA, Ph.D. and Mr. Zulkarnain, S.T., M.T.,
D.Sc.(Tech.) and also my colleagues from Post Graduate
Program for Data and Quality Engineering, Industrial
Engineering, Universitas Indonesia who provided insight and
expertise that greatly assisted this paper.
REFERENCES
[1] J. A. Fitzsimmons and M. J. Fitzsimmons, Service Management:
Operations, Strategy, Information Technology, New York: The
McGraw-Hill Companies, 2011.
[2] J. Zeyu, Y. Shuiping, Z. Mingduan, C. Yongqiang and L. Yi, "Model
Study for Intelligent Transportation System with Big Data," Procedia
Computer Science, vol. 107, pp. 418-426, 2017.
[3] N. Nishanthan, K. Thiruthanigesan and P. Georgakis, "Towards The
Development Of Intelligent Transportation Systems In Sri Lanka,"
International Journal of Scientific & Technology Research, vol. 6, no.
12, pp. 11-16, 2017.
[4] S. Hartono, "Intelligence Transportation System (ITS)," Binus
University - School of Information Systems, 17 April 2014. [Online].
Available: https://sis.binus.ac.id/2014/04/17/intelligence-transportation-
system-its/. [Accessed 02 June 2019].
[5] Z. Dong, Y. Xiaoguang, L. Haode and T. Jing, "Internet-based
advanced traveler information service: Opportunities and challenges,"
Optoelectronics and Image Processing (ICOIP), pp. 646-650, 2010.
[6] M. S. Jalil, "E-Service Innovation: A Case Study of Shohoz.com,"
Procedia: Social and Behavioral Sciences, pp. 531-539, 2016.
[7] V. Majstrovic, "E-Ticketing Systems in Culture and
Tourism:Experience in Croatia," Recent advances in economics,
management & marketing, pp. 59-63, 2013.
[8] A. M. A. Akouni, "Mobile based applications for bus ticketing
services," College of Arts and Sciences Universiti of Malaysia, 2009.
[9] A. Wittmer and B. Riegler, "Purchasing a general ticket for public
transport – A means end approach," Travel Behaviour and Society, vol.
1, pp. 106-112, 2014.