United We Ride National Dialogue

The Coordinating Council on Access and Mobility (CCAM) asked the National Academy of Public Administration and Easter Seals Project ACTION to develop and host the first United We Ride (UWR) National Dialogue. The goal of the Dialogue was to help shape future policy direction and provide input to the next CCAM strategic plan. The National Academy also assembled a small work group with representatives of the Federal Interagency Coordinating Council on Access and Mobility, Easter Seals Project ACTION, and the National Resource Center on Human Service Transportation to help guide the process of design and implementation.The CCAM includes 11 federal departments, nine of which are responsible for providing transportation for people with disabilities, older adults, and people with limited incomes. CCAM officially launched United We Ride in 2004 to (1) provide more rides for target populations while using the same or fewer assets, (2) simplify access, and (3) increase customer satisfaction.Key FindingsThe process used to create coordinated transportation plans needs improvement. Significant federal policy barriers still exist to strategies that would facilitate access to transportation services. Mobility management strategies are underutilized in communities across the country, and missed opportunities to bridge gaps between transportation and other community services still need to be addressed

Examination of Regional Transit Service Under Contracting: A Case Study in the Greater New Orleans Region, Research Report 10-09

Many local governments and transit agencies in the United States face financial difficulties in providing adequate public transit service in individual systems, and in providing sufficient regional coordination to accommodate transit trips involving at least one transfer between systems. These difficulties can be attributed to the recent economic downturn, continuing withdrawal of the state and federal funds that help support local transit service, a decline in local funding for transit service in inner cities due to ongoing suburbanization, and a distribution of resources that responds to geographic equity without addressing service needs. This study examines two main research questions: (1) the effect of a “delegated management” contract on efficiency and effectiveness within a single transit system, and (2) the effects of a single private firm—contracted separately by more than one agency in the same region—on regional coordination, exploring the case in Greater New Orleans. The current situation in New Orleans exhibits two unique transit service conditions. First, New Orleans Regional Transit Authority (RTA) executed a “delegated management” contract with a multinational private firm, outsourcing more functions (e.g., management, planning, funding) to the contractor than has been typical in the U.S. Second, as the same contractor has also been contracted by another transit agency in an adjacent jurisdiction—Jefferson Transit (JeT), this firm may potentially have economic incentives to improve regional coordination, in order to increase the productivity and effectiveness of its own transit service provision. Although the limited amount of available operation and financial data has prevented us from drawing more definitive conclusions, the findings of this multifaceted study should provide valuable information on a transit service contracting approach new to the U.S.: delegated management. This study also identified a coherent set of indices with which to evaluate the regional coordination of transit service, the present status of coordination among U.S. transit agencies, and barriers that need to be resolved for regional transit coordination to be successful

Performance Measures to Assess Resiliency and Efficiency of Transit Systems

Transit agencies are interested in assessing the short-, mid-, and long-term performance of infrastructure with the objective of enhancing resiliency and efficiency. This report addresses three distinct aspects of New Jersey’s Transit System: 1) resiliency of bridge infrastructure, 2) resiliency of public transit systems, and 3) efficiency of transit systems with an emphasis on paratransit service. This project proposed a conceptual framework to assess the performance and resiliency for bridge structures in a transit network before and after disasters utilizing structural health monitoring (SHM), finite element (FE) modeling and remote sensing using Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR). The public transit systems in NY/NJ were analyzed based on their vulnerability, resiliency, and efficiency in recovery following a major natural disaster

Towards sustainable transport: wireless detection of passenger trips on public transport buses

An important problem in creating efficient public transport is obtaining data about the set of trips that passengers make, usually referred to as an Origin/Destination (OD) matrix. Obtaining this data is problematic and expensive in general, especially in the case of buses because on-board ticketing systems do not record where and when passengers get off a bus. In this paper we describe a novel and inexpensive system that uses off-the-shelf Bluetooth hardware to accurately record passenger journeys. Here we show how our system can be used to derive passenger OD matrices, and additionally we show how our data can be used to further improve public transport services.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl

The Carbon Reduction Transportation Initiative at Northern Arizona University

abstract: The Carbon Reduction Transportation Initiative (CRTI) at Northern Arizona University (NAU) was created to improve both recruitment and retention efforts while significantly lowering NAU’s carbon footprint. Through a collective subsidization between NAU and the City of Flagstaff, the CRTI would be able to provide all NAU students and staff free access to public transportation. This initiative would also help to reduce the amount of traffic congestion in Flagstaff’s downtown business district and free up valuable parking spaces both on and off campus. In addition, Flagstaff’s public bus system, the Northern Arizona Intergovernmental Public Transportation Authority (NAIPTA) would become eligible to apply for larger grants with the anticipated increase in ridership. This would then allow NAIPTA to increase both the number and the frequency of bus stops which would benefit the entire Flagstaff community

Using Delay Tolerant Networks as a Backbone for Low-cost Smart Cities

Rapid urbanization burdens city infrastructure and creates the need for local governments to maximize the usage of resources to serve its citizens. Smart city projects aim to alleviate the urbanization problem by deploying a vast amount of Internet-of-things (IoT) devices to monitor and manage environmental conditions and infrastructure. However, smart city projects can be extremely expensive to deploy and manage. A significant portion of the expense is a result of providing Internet connectivity via 5G or WiFi to IoT devices. This paper proposes the use of delay tolerant networks (DTNs) as a backbone for smart city communication; enabling developing communities to become smart cities at a fraction of the cost. A model is introduced to aid policy makers in designing and evaluating the expected performance of such networks. Preliminary results are presented based on a public transit network data-set from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Finally, innovative ways of improving network performance in a low-cost smart city is discussed.Comment: 3 pages, accepted to IEEE SmartComp 201

The principles of public transport network planning: a review of the emerging literature with select examples

This paper highlights for urban planners the key strategies and tactics that can be deployed to improve suburban public transport networks. Introduction The governance and management of public transport systems is an essential component of metropolitan planning and urban management. Most metropolitan strategies in Australia and in other jurisdictions presuppose the provision of public transport. Yet there is often a disconnection between transport plans and land-use schemes. Similarly, metropolitan land-use plans that do integrate with transport plans tend to focus on infrastructure rather than service quality and connectivity. A failure to adequately consider the quality of public transport networks in land-use planning analysis has the potential to produce poor planning outcomes in two key ways. First new land-uses may be inadequately served with public transport services, leading to dependence on alternative travel modes, such as cars. Second, the failure to recognise the significance of well-planned local public transport networks may result in the preclusion of some land-use options. This preclusion may relate to the location of land-uses or their design, such as over-provision of carparking. The continuing debate over whether to address suburban cardependence via land-use change or via transport planning is a case in point. And while the arguments in favour of and against land-use change as a means to overcome car dependence are well known in the planning literature. There is a growing if not yet widely appreciated literature that advocates improvements to public transport network planning and coordination as a means of reducing car dependence. The recognition of improved public transport network planning as a means of reducing car dependence is immensely significant because it offers planners an additional or alternative tool for managing urban transport patterns beyond land-use variation or investment in heavy infrastructure. Urban planning practitioners are not yet well served and informed by the broader public transport planning literature on the advantages of public transport network planning. While there is an extensive literature focusing on the economics and engineering of urban public transport systems the planning literature on the practices that contribute to success in public transport network design and operations is relatively poorly documented. There is also very little literature dedicated to public transport network design within Australian cities which are distinguished by highly centralised radial heavy rail networks with bus or tram networks that are well developed in inner urban zones but less so in the outer suburbs. The remainder of this paper has four objectives for transport planning theory and practice. First the paper reviews the literature on public transport network planning principles; next the paper attempts to formulate these principles in practical terms such that they can be applied to line and network design; third the paper considers further dimensions of network planning, including institutional arrangements and transition points in network design. The paper is intended for three audiences. The first is planning scholars who are involved in debates about public transport. The second is strategic policy officials in planning agencies who are involved in the planning and design of public transport networks. The third audience comprises those involved in development processes and who seek insights into the technical components of public transport network planning. Some caveats are appropriate however. The paper is not seeking to justify public transport network planning. The authors consider that the case for dedicated planning is implicit in the assumption that cities should provide good quality public transport to their residents. The wider case in favour of network planning has been successfully advanced elsewhere. Conversely, the paper is not intended as a directly applicable manual of detailed transport planning practice. While it does offer some insights into the practical public transport network planning task such guidance is better provided by Nielsen et al and Vuchic. Instead the paper highlights for urban planners the key strategies and tactics for that can be deployed to improve suburban public transport networks. Understanding these principles should thus assist urban planners – and urban scholars – to better shape and evaluate urban development processes and patterns