We have reviewed the key components of the California High Speed Rail Ridership Studies. The primary contractor for these studies, Cambridge Systematics (CS), has followed generally accepted professional standards in carrying out the demand modeling and analysis. Nevertheless we have found some significant problems that render the key demand forecasting models unreliable for policy analysis. This Executive Summary describes the most serious problems. The body of this report elaborates on these problems and describes additional concerns we have. In broad terms, the approach taken by CS...
Accident causation and accident severity analyses for a light rail transit system are presented, with a view to providing input for the identification and development of accident and severity countermeasures. Accident reports of the Santa Clara County Transit Authority were used in both analyses. In the accident causation analysis, patterns of critical events for various types of light rail accident involvement were determined. The accident severity model is a binary logit model expressing the probability of injury accident as a function of speeds before collision of both the light rail...
There has been a unique convergence of factors that have contributed to Japan's outstanding public transportation system. The paper focuses on two modes of transportation: air and high-speed rail (HSR). These two modes do not complement each other as in Europe, but compete head-on in Japan. Moreover, Japan does not have to contend with market-distorting public subsidies, because both companies operating HSR in the corridor of interest are highly profitable, primarily because of their HSR service. The Japanese transportation system therefore provides an excellent environment in which to...
While transportation funding can be collected in a variety of direct (e.g., fares, tolls, and gas taxes) or indirect (e.g., property and sales tax) ways, dynamic demand responsive pricing not only collects revenue but also incentivizes travelers to avoid peak-demand periods, thus utilizing infrastructure capacity more efficiently. Unfortunately, the demand response to price changes, called the price elasticity of demand, is generally greater for longer-term travel planning (e.g., air and rail travel) than it is for more atomized short-term planning (e.g., highway tolls and transit fares)....
The second phase of this project further investigates impacts to local traffic operations at intersections adjacent to signal preemption by SPRINTER commuter trains and comes up with countermeasures that not only minimize such impacts but also take into account the traffic signal coordination. An extended traffic signal optimization model has been developed to minimize overall traffic delays and the weighted width of “green band” along several coordinated traffic signals around the grade crossings. Based on the train’s movement detection at grade crossings and the waiting queue estimation...
The State of California has been financially supporting Amtrak intercity passenger rail services since 1976. This paper studies the impacts of this support on local population and employment at both county and city levels. We use datasets which include geographic, transportation, and socioeconomic characteristics of California counties and cities from 1950 to 2010. Propensity score, one-to-one matching models are employed to draw units from the control group, which are counties/cities that do not have a state-supported Amtrak station, to match with units from the treatment group, which are...
California is one of the largest producers of perishable produce in the world. This sector supports a large transportation industry that handles the exports of these goods. Starting from the 1950’s, the export of produce has gradually shifted modes from rail to truck. This project builds on the initial work from the “Rail and the California Economy” project by examining the potential of shifting the movement of perishable produce in California from truck to rail. The final report provides a review of the state of the California rail system in terms of perishable produce transport and where...
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
2015
TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Report 118: Integrating Aviation and Passenger Rail Planning explores planning options, funding challenges, and potential actions to improve integration of rail services with airports, particularly in congested corridors.
Emerging evidence suggests that the recovery of transit ridership post-COVID has been uneven, especially for rail transit. This study aims to understand the station area land use, built form, and transit network characteristics that explain station-level changes in transit ridership pre- and post-COVID, and explores the degree to which those changes are rail transit-specific or the result of overall changes in visits to station areas. Specifically, we examine ridership changes between 2019 and 2021 for 242 rail stations belonging to the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), San Diego Metropolitan...
