Public Transportation

Assessment of Service Integration Practices for Public Transportation: Review of the Literature

Miller, Mark A.
2004

This report documents a review of the literature of transit service integration policies. It is the initial task of a project whose objective is to understand service integration policies and practices that transit agencies have employed and the benefits such policies have brought. Studies have shown that ongoing coordination and integration of transit services can improve public transportation system connectivity and reliability, and help make transit a more attractive travel mode alternative to the car. Findings from the literature shed light on several topics, including how service...

An Assessment of Bus Rapid Transit Opportunities in the San Francisco Bay Area

Miller, Mark A.
White, Dustin
2004

This report documents a continuing assessment of bus rapid transit opportunities in the San Francisco Bay Area. In this study we are focusing on bus transit routes that partially travel on California state routes, whether arterial roadways or freeways. A primary component of this project is to consider the inter-connectivity and regional aspects of bus rapid transit systems deployment in the San Francisco Bay Area region. Considering state routes will help identify more regional opportunities for innovative types of partnerships to help address unmet public transit service needs across...

Personalized Demand Responsive Transit Systems

Yim, Y. B.
Khattak, Asad J.
2000

An aging population in the US, low-density urban sprawl and the accessibility needs of certain groups (particularly disabled and aged) increasingly point to more flexible demand-responsive transit systems in the future. This paper describes the important aspects of a consumer-oriented Personalized Demand Responsive Transit (PDRT) service. The system will provide services to the traveling public for journeys to work and for journeys to other destinations. A PDRT that responds to the travelers' needs and takes advantage of the emerging advanced public transportation technologies to increase...

Institutional Aspects of Bus Rapid Transit – A Macroscopic Examination

Miller, Mark A.
Buckley, Stephen M.
2000

This report investigated the institutional aspects of Bus Rapid Transit through a macroscopic examination of relevant issues ascertained through a literature review, a series of project team brainstorming meetings, and input from members of the Federal Transit Administration’s Bus Rapid Transit staff. The literature review provided insight into the history of Bus Rapid Transit concepts ranging from very early research in the United States in the late 1950s, continuing with dual mode systems and early busways in the 1960s and 1970s, international experiences in Latin America and Canada, and...

Productivity Benefits and Cost Efficiencies from ITS Applications to Public Transit: The Evaluation of AVL

Gillen, David
Chang, Elva
Johnson, Doug
2000

The research reported in this document uses Total Factor Productivity (TFP) techniques, with which we develop measures of productivity performance of public transit systems of varying sizes and locations, and use this baseline to examine the potential contribution of alternative ITS applications. TFP aggregates outputs on the basis of their revenue contribution and inputs on the basis of their relative importance to total costs to calculate the overall firm productivity as a function of these quantities. The focus of this research was how the opportunities for improving efficiency via AVL...

Evaluation of UC Davis Long-Range Transportation, Land-Use, and Housing Plans: Examining the Potential for Innovative Mobility Pilot Projects

Finson, Rachel S.
Shaheen, Susan A.
2001

At present, the City of Davis, surrounding communities, and the UC Davis campus are struggling with many of the same transportation problems that plague larger urban centers including increasing traffic, limited parking, and challenges to effective operation of the public transit system. The campus is expecting to grow by 6,000 students in the next ten years (plus approximately 3,000 faculty and staff) and is developing a Long-Range Development Plan (LRDP) that will serve to guide this growth. This plan will include housing, traffic control, parking, alternative transportation modes, and...

PATH ATMIS State of the Research Annual Report Fiscal Year 1999 / 2000

Tam, Robert
2000

This report summarizes PATH ATMIS research for fiscal year 1999/2000. In each of the brief project descriptions we state the objectives of the project and outline its status and some of its principal results. These descriptions are not intended to be comprehensive or complete, but rather to present a picture of the main thrusts of each of the reported projects. References are provided in the end of the report for more detailed information about particular projects. Taken together, the collection of project descriptions should give the reader an overview of the entire ATMIS research program...

Demand-Responsive Transit Shuttles: Who Will Use Them?

Anspacher, David
Khattak, Asad J.
Yim, Youngbin
2004

Large urban areas often have rail systems that rely on feeder buses to expand their service area. This paper explores the possibility of expanding access to existing rail transit systems through demand-responsive shuttles. The study analyzes the effect of several factors on an individual's willingness to use a door-to-station shuttle service. Using survey data collected in a case study of one urban and one suburban neighborhood (N=800) served by the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit, this paper uses descriptive statistics and ordered logit regression to investigate the influence of...

Daily Activity and Multimodal Travel Planner: Phase 1 Report

Kitamura, Ryuichi
Chen, Cynthia
1998

Travel constitutes an integral part of our daily life. Only by traveling are we able to engage in a variety of activities at different locations. Since the extension of our movement is restricted by the amount of time that is available and the speed with which we can move, it is important that our travel be efficiently organized such that the time resource can be best utilized to engage in activities in an efficient manner. One approach to achieving this is to choose less congested and faster routes. The use of in-vehicle advanced traveler information systems (ATIS) for this purpose has...

A Comparable Systems Analysis Of San Francisco's BART: Lessons For Automated Highway Systems

Hickman, Mark D.
1994

This study examines the lessons to be learned from the experience of the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system, particularly as applied to the growing research on automated highway systems (AHS). The first section of the report briefly motivates the analogy of BART by comparing some of the technical and non-technical performance factors surrounding both AHS and BART. Several pertinent technical and non- technical issues surrounding BART are described in more detail, emphasizing the decision-making that went in to BART's development, testing, and the beginning of revenue...