Measuring Rural Transit Availability

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Measuring Rural Transit Availability

• Nicholas E. Lownes, Ph.D.
• 18th National Rural and Intercity Bus
  Transportation Conference
  
• October 21, 2008

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Motivation

• Rural transit service presents several
  difficulties CT has significant rural
  population
  
• Theoretical treatments of rural transit
  availability may miss important nuance
  
• Fixed-route measures miss important aspects
• Invite input nlownes_at_engr.uconn.edu

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Fixed-Route Availability

• Studied a circulator route design in Austin, TX
  (not rural)
  
• Under idealized conditions, definition of
  accessibility and opportunity cost of no access
  impacted results significantly.

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User-Focused
UT
Station
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Operator-Focused
UT
Station
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Balanced
UT
Station
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Accessibility Perspectives

• Characterization depends on perspective
  purpose
  
• Accessibility
• Restricted Budget Best service within
  restrictive budget constraints
  
• Social Benefit or Inducing Demand Maximizing
  accessibility/coverage

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Walking Threshold Sensitivity
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Availability Measures

• Fixed-route Measures
• Spatial Measures
• Local Index of Transit Accessibility (LITA)
  Developers seeking to improve real estate
  investments
  
• Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual
  (TCQSM) Transit planners managers
  

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Availability Measures

• Spatiotemporal Measures
• Transit Level of Service (TLOS) Transit planners
  managers
  
• Track boarding opportunities (spatial coverage)
  over time
  
• Demand variability throughout day
• Utility Measures
• TxDOT Transit Accessibility Measure (TAM)
• Function of origin, destination, demographics,
  trip purpose
  

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Opportunity Cost

• Back of the envelope
• Cost of maintaining single-car vs. two-car
  household 6000 (fuel at 2.75 per gallon
  
• Function of
• proximity to transit (3/4 mile),
• Driving less
• Walking more
• Owning fewer cars

From Bailey, L. Public Transportation and
Petroleum Savings in the U.S. Reducing
Dependence on Oil. ICF International, American
Public Transportation Association, Washington,
D.C., 35 pp, (2007).
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Opportunity Cost Sensitivity
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Opportunity Cost

• Econometric Analyses
• Both SP/RP modeling and analysis
• Relative WTP for features of transit service
• Elasticity of transit
• Value of travel time savings

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Rural Transit Availability

• TCQSM offers methods for estimating rural transit
  LOS, incorporating availability
  
• Rural areas will fall below density threshold for
  transit-supportive areas in fixed-route
  calculations
  

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Demand Responsive Availability

• Treated separately in TCQSM a much different
  service
  
• Availability a function of
• Response time
• Trip availability/connectivity
• Hours and days of service
• Reliability
• Quality of service w.r.t. time, comfort

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Rural Transit Availability

• Rural populations differ from urban counterparts
• Demographically
• More vulnerable to energy price fluctuations
• Equity issues
• Whats missing Information Penetration
• No doubt this is a topic rural operators have
  thought about considerably (there was a session
  at this conference)

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Rural Transit Availability

• Can we consider transit service available if
  people are unaware?
  
• Rural demographics may impact
• Internet usage
• Attitudes toward transit
• How can we incorporate these ideas in an
  availability measure?

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Our work in CT

• Phase I Analysis of Availability Measures
• Consistency
• Parameters of Interest
• Appropriate Response Variable
• Propensity to ride
• Spatial Coverage
• O-D coverage
• Temporal Coverage
• Service hours

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Work in CT

• Phase II Expanding to Rural Markets
• How do we integrate rural markets?
• Park and ride express coverage?
• DRT ridership and/or LOS
• Information penetration
• What are the best practices for communicating and
  how do we include in Connecticut?

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Acknowledgement

• Partially sponsored by the Connecticut
  Cooperative Highway Research Program, Project 08-5

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Thank you
Ideas, comments, questions nlownes_at_engr.uconn.edu
Source www.fta.dot.gov/about/about_FTA_2449.html/