Bus Transit Operational Efficiency Resulting from Passenger Boardings at Park-and-Ride Facilities

In order to save time and money by not driving to an ultimate destination, some urban commuters drive themselves a few miles to specially designated parking lots built for transit customers and located where trains or buses stop. The focus of this paper is the effect Park-and-Ride (P&R) lots have on the efficiency of bus transit as measured in five bus transit systems in the western U.S. This study describes a series of probes with models and data to find objective P&R influence measures that, when combined with other readily-available data, permit a quantitative assessment of the significance of P&R on transit efficiency. The authors developed and describe techniques that examine P&R as an influence on transit boardings at bus stops and on bus boardings along an entire route. The regression results reported are based on the two in-depth case studies for which sufficient data were obtained to examine (using econometric techniques) the effects of park-and-ride availability on bus transit productivity. Both Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression and Poisson regression are employed. The results from the case studies suggest that availability of parking near bus stops is a stronger influence on transit ridership than residential housing near bus stops. Results also suggest that expanding parking facilities near suburban park-and-ride lots increases the productivity of bus operations as measured by ridership per service hour. The authors also illustrate that reasonable daily parking charges (compared to the cost of driving to much more expensive parking downtown) would provide sufficient capital to build and operate new P&R capacity without subsidy from other revenue sources

Steps to Supplement Park-and-Ride Public Transit Access with Ride-and-Ride Shuttles

Public transit ridership in California declined in the five years before the pandemic of 2020–21 and dropped significantly further after the pandemic began. A sharp downward step in the level of transit boarding occurred after February 2020, and continues to the date of this report as a result of the public-health guidance on social distancing, expanded work-at-home, and a travel mode shift from public transit to private cars. A critical issue has come to the foreground of public transportation policy, namely, how to increase the quality and geographic reach of transit service to better serve the essential trips of mobility disadvantaged citizens who do not have access to private vehicle travel. The research focus of this report is an examination of the circumstances where fixed route bus route service could cost-effectively be replaced by on-demand microtransit, with equivalent overall zone-level efficiency and a higher quality of complete trip service. Research methods were reviews of documented agency experience, execution of simple simulations, and sketch-level analysis of 2019 performance reported in the National Transit Database. Available evidence is encouraging and suggestive, but not conclusive. The research found that substitutions of flexible microtransit for fixed route buses are already being piloted across the U.S., with promising performance results. The findings imply that action steps could be taken in California to expand and refine an emphasis on general purpose microtransit in corridors and zones with a relatively high fraction of potential travelers who are mobility disadvantaged, and where traditional bus routes are capturing fewer than 15 boardings per vehicle hour. To be sufficiently productive as fixed route replacements, microtransit service technologies in the same or larger zones need to be capable of achieving vehicle boardings of five per hour, a challenge worth addressing with technology applications. Delivery of microtransit service can be undertaken through contracts with a growing set of private sector firms, which are developing processes to merge general purpose customers with those now assigned to ADA-required paratransit and Medi-Cal-supported non-emergency medical transport

Impact of park-and-ride on public transit ridership

We examine the relative impact of increased housing vs. increased parking availability on ridership of public transit. The approach sheds light on the trade-off in alternative land uses near transit stops: Park-and-ride (PnR) vs. transit-oriented development (TOD). In the example of one city studied here, econometric analysis suggests that PnR provides more transit ridership than housing. However, the transit agency may choose the alternative of reducing PnR and partnering with housing developers as a source of new non-fare revenue that creates vibrant, walkable growth in station areas, which is considered to be just as important as ridership

Efficient Simulation Of Complex Fenestration Systems In Heat Balance Room Models

The solar, longwave, and convective interactions between a window, its shading attachments and its surroundings constitute a complicated coupled heat balance problem that can entail significant computational intensity to simulate in detail. A novel approach represents the fenestration system using several indices of merit – most notably the U-factor and a cross-coupling coefficient. CPU time is reduced without forfeiting features such as the ability to distinguish between air and mean radiant temperatures. The required indices of merit are obtained using thermal network theory and can safely be re-evaluated much less frequently than each time-step, or they can be revised as needed in response to changes in sun angle or shade geometry (e.g., blind slat adjustment). This method has been used to integrate the ASHWAT fenestration model with the California Simulation Engine, a detailed residential model. ASHWAT supports many combinations of glazing and shading layers separated by arbitrary fill gases or by gaps open to outdoor or indoor air. This implementation demonstrates a method that offers generality and detail while providing the input simplicity and computational speed required for practicality.American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Inc. (ASHRAE) || Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) || California Energy Commission (CEC) || Pacific Gas & Electric Company || Southern California Edison || Sempra Utilitie

Bending Tests of Circular Cylinders of Corrugated Aluminum-alloy Sheet

Bending tests were made of two circular cylinders of corrugated aluminum-alloy sheet. In each test failure occurred by bending of the corrugations in a plane normal to the skin. It was found, after analysis of the effect of short end bays, that the computed stress on the extreme fiber of a corrugated cylinder is in excess of that for a flat panel of the same basic pattern and panel length tested as a pin-ended column. It is concluded that this increased strength was due to the effects of curvature of the pitch line. It is also concluded from the tests that light bulkheads closely spaced strengthen corrugated cylinders very materially

In Vivo Bioluminescence Imaging To Evaluate Systemic and Topical Antibiotics against Community-Acquired Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus-Infected Skin Wounds in Mice

Community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) frequently causes skin and soft tissue infections, including impetigo, cellulitis, folliculitis, and infected wounds and ulcers. Uncomplicated CA-MRSA skin infections are typically managed in an outpatient setting with oral and topical antibiotics and/or incision and drainage, whereas complicated skin infections often require hospitalization, intravenous antibiotics, and sometimes surgery. The aim of this study was to deve

Influenza in Migratory Birds and Evidence of Limited Intercontinental Virus Exchange

Migratory waterfowl of the world are the natural reservoirs of influenza viruses of all known subtypes. However, it is unknown whether these waterfowl perpetuate highly pathogenic (HP) H5 and H7 avian influenza viruses. Here we report influenza virus surveillance from 2001 to 2006 in wild ducks in Alberta, Canada, and in shorebirds and gulls at Delaware Bay (New Jersey), United States, and examine the frequency of exchange of influenza viruses between the Eurasian and American virus clades, or superfamilies. Influenza viruses belonging to each of the subtypes H1 through H13 and N1 through N9 were detected in these waterfowl, but H14 and H15 were not found. Viruses of the HP Asian H5N1 subtypes were not detected, and serologic studies in adult mallard ducks provided no evidence of their circulation. The recently described H16 subtype of influenza viruses was detected in American shorebirds and gulls but not in ducks. We also found an unusual cluster of H7N3 influenza viruses in shorebirds and gulls that was able to replicate well in chickens and kill chicken embryos. Genetic analysis of 6,767 avian influenza gene segments and 248 complete avian influenza viruses supported the notion that the exchange of entire influenza viruses between the Eurasian and American clades does not occur frequently. Overall, the available evidence does not support the perpetuation of HP H5N1 influenza in migratory birds and suggests that the introduction of HP Asian H5N1 to the Americas by migratory birds is likely to be a rare event

Noninvasive In Vivo Imaging to Evaluate Immune Responses and Antimicrobial Therapy against Staphylococcus aureus and USA300 MRSA Skin Infections

Staphylococcus aureus skin infections represent a significant public health threat because of the emergence of antibiotic-resistant strains such as methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA). As greater understanding of protective immune responses and more effective antimicrobial therapies are needed, a S. aureus skin wound infection model was developed in which full-thickness scalpel cuts on the backs of mice were infected with a bioluminescent S. aureus (methicillin sensitive) or USA300 community-acquired MRSA strain and in vivo imaging was used to noninvasively monitor the bacterial burden. In addition, the infection-induced inflammatory response was quantified using in vivo fluorescence imaging of LysEGFP mice. Using this model, we found that both IL-1α and IL-1β contributed to host defense during a wound infection, whereas IL-1β was more critical during an intradermal S. aureus infection. Furthermore, treatment of a USA300 MRSA skin infection with retapamulin ointment resulted in up to 85-fold reduction in bacterial burden and a 53% decrease in infection-induced inflammation. In contrast, mupirocin ointment had minimal clinical activity against this USA300 strain, resulting in only a 2-fold reduction in bacterial burden. Taken together, this S. aureus wound infection model provides a valuable preclinical screening method to investigate cutaneous immune responses and the efficacy of topical antimicrobial therapies