Rail

Transit Access and the Agglomeration of New Firms : A Case Study of Portland and Dallas.

Noland, Robert B.
Daniel Chatman
Klein, Nicholas J.
2014

The objective of this paper is to examine whether new firms are more likely to form near rail transit stations. Two relatively new light-rail systems—one in Portland, Oregon, and the other in Dallas, Texas—form the basis of the analysis. A geocoded, time-series database of firm births from 1991 through 2008 is analyzed using all firm births, firm births of various sizes, and firm births of specific industry sectors. A random effects, negative binomial model is used to examine associations between proximity to rail stations and other spatially defined variables. Results show that newly...

Does Transit-Oriented Development Need the Transit?

Daniel Chatman
2015

Urban planners have invested a lot of energy in the idea of transit-oriented developments (TODs). Developing dense housing near rail stations with mixed land uses and better walkability is intended to encourage people to walk, bike, and take transit instead of driving. But TODs can also be expensive, largely because rail itself is expensive. In one study, the average cost for light rail construction was $61 million per mile in 2009...

Firm Births, Access to Transit, and Agglomeration in Portland, Oregon, and Dallas, Texas

Daniel Chatman
Noland, Robert B.
Klein, Nicholas J.
2016

The formation of new firms is one process by which economies grow and innovate. Public transportation services may facilitate the birth of new firms by both providing better access and causing local densification that leads to agglomeration economies. In this study firm births are investigated to determine how they are related to newly provided light rail transit service in two metropolitan areas in the United States. A geocoded time-series database of firm establishments in Dallas, Texas, and Portland, Oregon, from 1991 through 2008 is used. The data set allows the study of spatial...

Access and the Choice of Transit Technology

Sivakumaran, Karthik
Li, Yuwei
Michael Cassidy
Madanat, Samer
2014

An urban transit system can be made more cost-efficient by improving the access to it. Efforts in this vein often entail the provision of greater mobility, as when high-speed feeder buses are used to carry commuters to and from trunk-line stations. Other efforts have focused on the creation of more favorable land-use patterns, as occurs when households within a Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) are tightly clustered around trunk stations. The efficacy of these mobility and land-use solutions are separately examined in the present work. To this end, continuum approximation models are used...

Achieving Higher Taxi Outflows from a Congested Drop-off Lane: A Simulation-Based Policy Study

Yang, Fangyi
Gu, Weihua
Michael Cassidy
Li, Xin
Li, Tiezhu
2019

We examine special lanes used by taxis and other shared-ride services to drop-off patrons at airport and rail terminals. Vehicles are prohibited from overtaking each other within the lane. They must therefore wait in a first-in-first-out queue during busy periods. Patrons are often discharged from vehicles only upon reaching a desired drop-off area near the terminal entrance. When wait times grow long, however, some vehicles discharge their patrons in advance of that desired area. A train station in Eastern China is selected as a case study. Its FIFO drop-off lane is presently managed by...

Could Transportation Network Companies Help Improve Rail Commuting?

Darling, Wesley
Michael Cassidy
2024

Commuter rail is known to have a “first- and last-mile” problem (i.e., a lack of options for getting commuters to and from a rail station). The first- and last-mile dilemma creates inequalities in access. For example, high-income commuters drive to work (forgoing transit altogether), middle-income commuters drive to a rail station and pay to park, and low-income commuters rely on feeder buses or walking to reach a rail station. Transportation network companies (TNCs), like Uber and Lyft, are a viable option for connecting travelers to rail stations, especially for those who don’t own a car...

Smart Parking Management Field Test: A Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) District Parking Demonstration

Susan Shaheen
Rodier, Caroline, PhD
2006

Smart parking management technologies may provide a cost-effective tool to address near-term parking constraints at transit stations. Smart parking management systems have been implemented in numerous European, British, and Japanese cities to more efficiently use parking capacity at transit stations by providing real-time information via changeable message signs to motorists about available parking spaces in park-and-ride lots. This working paper describes the interim results of a smart parking field operational test, which operated at a San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) District...

Carsharing and the Built Environment: Geographic- Information System-Based Study of One U.S Operator

Stillwater, Tai
Mokhtarian, Patricia L.
Susan Shaheen
2009

The use of carsharing vehicles over a period of 16 months in 2006-07 was compared to built environment and demographic factors in this GIS-based multivariate regression study of an urban U.S. carsharing operator. Carsharing is a relatively new transportation industry in which companies provide members with short-term vehicle access from distributed neighborhood locations. The number of registered carsharing members in North America has doubled every year or two to a current level of approximately 320,000. Researchers have long supposed that public transit access is a key factor driving...

Smart Parking Pilot on the Coaster Commuter Rail Line in San Diego, California

Rodier, Caroline
Susan Shaheen
Blake, Tagan
2010

Public transit authorities increasingly are harnessing advances in sensor, payment, and enforcement technologies to operate parking facilities more efficiently. In the short term, these innovations promise to enhance customer parking experiences, increase the effective supply of existing parking with minimal investment, and increase ridership and overall revenue. Over the longer term, these systems could further expand ridership by generating revenue to add parking capacity and improve access. This report describes the Smart Parking Pilot Project on the COASTER commuter rail line in San...

Mobility and the Sharing Economy: Potential to Overcome First- and Last-Mile Public Transit Connections

Susan Shaheen
Chan, Nelson
2016

Shared mobility—the shared use of a motor vehicle, bicycle, or other mode—enables travelers to gain short-term access to transportation modes on an as-needed basis. The term “shared mobility” includes the modes of carsharing, personal vehicle sharing (peer-to-peer carsharing and fractional ownership), bikesharing, scooter sharing, traditional ridesharing, transportation network companies (or ridesourcing), and e-Hail (taxis). It can also include flexible transit services, including microtransit, which supplement fixed-route bus and rail services. Shared mobility has proliferated in global...