Changes in Transit Use and Service and Associated Changes in Driving Near a New Light Rail Transit Line, MTI Report 12-44

Los Angeles is pursuing possibly the most ambitious rail transit investment program in the nation with plans to open six new rail transit lines between now and 2019. The report provides policy makes and planners a better understanding of the potential impacts of Los Angeles Metro’s rail transit investment program by assessing the changes in transit use of nearby residents and nearby bus service associated with the Expo Line, the first of the six new lines. Our findings indicate that changes in bus service that are coincident with the introduction of new light rail transit can negatively affect the overall transit ridership in the corridor. In addition, we find that households living near new Expo Line light rail stations reduced their vehicle miles traveled (VMT), but those households living near bus stops that were eliminated as part of the service change increased their VMT

Passenger Flows in Underground Railway Stations and Platforms, MTI Report 12-43

Urban rail systems are designed to carry large volumes of people into and out of major activity centers. As a result, the stations at these major activity centers are often crowded with boarding and alighting passengers, resulting in passenger inconvenience, delays, and at times danger. This study examines the planning and analysis of station passenger queuing and flows to offer rail transit station designers and transit system operators guidance on how to best accommodate and manage their rail passengers. The objectives of the study are to: 1) Understand the particular infrastructural, operational, behavioral, and spatial factors that affect and may constrain passenger queuing and flows in different types of rail transit stations; 2) Identify, compare, and evaluate practices for efficient, expedient, and safe passenger flows in different types of station environments and during typical (rush hour) and atypical (evacuations, station maintenance/ refurbishment) situations; and 3) Compile short-, medium-, and long-term recommendations for optimizing passenger flows in different station environments

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

Neighborhood Crime and Travel Behavior: An Investigation of the Influence of Neighborhood Crime Rates on Mode Choice – Phase II, MTI Report 11-04

There are considerable environmental and public health benefits if people choose to walk, bicycle, or ride transit, instead of drive. However, little work has been done on the effects of neighborhood crimes on mode choice. Instinctively, we understand that the threats posed by possible criminal activity in one’s neighborhood can play a major role in the decision to drive, take transit, walk or ride a bicycle, but so far little empirical evidence supports this notion, let alone guides public infrastructure investments, land use planning, or the allocation of police services. This report--describing Phase 2 of a research study conducted for the Mineta Transportation Institute on crime and travel behavior – finds that high crime neighborhoods tend to discourage residents from walking or riding a bicycle. When comparing a high crime to a lower crime neighborhood the odds of walking over choosing auto decrease by 17.25 percent for work trips and 61 percent for non-work trips. For transit access to work trips, the odds of choosing walk/bike to a transit station over auto decrease by 48.1 percent. Transit trips, on the other hand, are affected by neighborhood crime levels in a similar way to auto trips, wherein high crime neighborhoods appear to encourage transit mode choice. The odds of taking transit over choosing auto increase by 17.25 percent for work trips and 164 percent for non-work trips. Surprised by this last finding, the research team tested two possible explanations for why high levels of neighborhood crime would increase transit use: 1) the mode choice models do not adequately account for the effects and interplay between urban form and crime levels and mode choice; and 2) people who ride in cars or take transit may feel more protected when riding in a vehicle (termed here, the “neighborhood exposure hypothesis”). To investigate the first explanation, the researchers tested a number of alternative urban form and crime interaction variables to no effect. Digging deeper into the second hypothesis, the researchers tested whether the access portion of transit trips (walking, bicycling, or driving to a transit stop) is sensitive to neighborhood crimes as well, wherein high crime neighborhoods discourage walking and bicycling and encourage driving to transit stations. The report provides evidence that high crime neighborhoods encourage driving to transit stops and discourage walking or bicycling, lending support to the neighborhood exposure hypothesis

Transit Performance Measures in California

This research is the result of a California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) request to assess the most commonly available transit performance measures in California. Caltrans wanted to understand performance measures and data used by Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) and transit agencies to help it develop statewide measures. This report serves as a summary reference guide to help Caltrans understand the numerous and diverse performance measures used by MPOs and transit agencies in California. First, investigators review the available literature to identify a complete transit performance framework for the purposes of organizing agency measures, metrics, and data sources. Next, they review the latest transit performance measures documented in planning reports for the four largest MPOs in California (San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Sacramento). Researchers pay special attention to the transit performance measures used by these MPOs, because these measures are available for the majority of California’s population. Finally, investigators summarize 231 performance measures used by a total 26 local transit agencies in the State of California, based on transit planning documents available on the internet

Managerial Segmentation of Service Offerings in Work Commuting, MTI Report WP 12-02

Methodology to efficiently segment markets for public transportation offerings has been introduced and exemplified in an application to an urban travel corridor in which high tech companies predominate. The principal objective has been to introduce and apply multivariate methodology to efficiently identify segments of work commuters and their demographic identifiers. A set of attributes in terms of which service offerings could be defined was derived from background studies and focus groups of work commuters in the county. Adaptive choice conjoint analysis was used to derive the importance weights of these attributes in available service offering to these commuters. A two-stage clustering procedure was then used to explore the grouping of individual’s subsets into homogeneous sub-groups of the sample. These subsets are commonly a basis for differentiation in service offerings that can increase total ridership in public transportation while approximating cost neutrality in service delivery. Recursive partitioning identified interactions between demographic predictors that significantly contributed to the discrimination of segments in demographics. Implementation of the results is discussed

Factors Determining Transit Access by Car Owners: Implications for Intermodal Passenger Transportation Planning

Although walking is the dominant mode of transportation to transit facilities, there are strong variations by socio-demographics, geography, mode of public transit used and other factors. There is particularly a need to understand ways in which car owners who choose to use public transportation can be encouraged to carpool, walk or bicycle in the “first mile” and “last mile” of the transit trip, instead of driving. These considerations have implications for addressing cold start trips resulting from short drives to transit facilities, active transportation strategies that may benefit transit users who currently drive, and in deriving solutions for shared transportation such as bicycle-sharing and car-sharing programs. Using data collected in the Chicago Metropolitan Area, we investigate how the mode choice for the access trip to transit stations is related to costs, personal and household variables, trip characteristics, and neighborhood factors including crash frequencies, crime prevalence, neighborhood racial characteristics, population density, roadway density etc. for persons in car owning households. The results suggest that while much of the choice depends on personal and trip related variables, some neighborhood level factors as well as the provision of parking at transit stations have important relationships to mode choice that can influence built environment factors such as density and policy areas such as the provision and operation of transit parking facilities