Toolkit for Estimating Demand for Rural Intercity Bus Services (2011)

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TRANSPORTAT ION RESEARCH BOARD WASHINGTON, D.C. 2011 www.TRB.org T R A N S I T C O O P E R A T I V E R E S E A R C H P R O G R A M TCRP REPORT 147 Research sponsored by the Federal Transit Administration in cooperation with the Transit Development Corporation Subscriber Categories Motor Carriers • Planning and Forecasting • Public Transportation Toolkit for Estimating Demand for Rural Intercity Bus Services Frederic D. Fravel Reyes Barboza Jason Quan KFH GROUP, INC. Bethesda, MD Jason K. Sartori INTEGRATED PLANNING CONSULTANTS, LLC Bethesda, MD

TCRP REPORT 147 Project B-37 ISSN 1073-4872 ISBN 978-0-309-21338-7 Library of Congress Control Number 2011933650 © 2011 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. COPYRIGHT INFORMATION Authors herein are responsible for the authenticity of their materials and for obtaining written permissions from publishers or persons who own the copyright to any previously published or copyrighted material used herein. Cooperative Research Programs (CRP) grants permission to reproduce material in this publication for classroom and not-for-profit purposes. Permission is given with the understanding that none of the material will be used to imply TRB, AASHTO, FAA, FHWA, FMCSA, FTA, or Transit Development Corporation endorsement of a particular product, method, or practice. It is expected that those reproducing the material in this document for educational and not-for-profit uses will give appropriate acknowledgment of the source of any reprinted or reproduced material. For other uses of the material, request permission from CRP. NOTICE The project that is the subject of this report was a part of the Transit Cooperative Research Program, conducted by the Transportation Research Board with the approval of the Governing Board of the National Research Council. The members of the technical panel selected to monitor this project and to review this report were chosen for their special competencies and with regard for appropriate balance. The report was reviewed by the technical panel and accepted for publication according to procedures established and overseen by the Transportation Research Board and approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council. The opinions and conclusions expressed or implied in this report are those of the researchers who performed the research and are not necessarily those of the Transportation Research Board, the National Research Council, or the program sponsors. The Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, the National Research Council, and the sponsors of the Transit Cooperative Research Program do not endorse products or manufacturers. Trade or manufacturers’ names appear herein solely because they are considered essential to the object of the report. TRANSIT COOPERATIVE RESEARCH PROGRAM The nation’s growth and the need to meet mobility, environmental, and energy objectives place demands on public transit systems. Current systems, some of which are old and in need of upgrading, must expand service area, increase service frequency, and improve efficiency to serve these demands. Research is necessary to solve operating problems, to adapt appropriate new technologies from other industries, and to intro- duce innovations into the transit industry. 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CRP STAFF FOR TCRP REPORT 147 Christopher W. Jenks, Director, Cooperative Research Programs Crawford F. Jencks, Deputy Director, Cooperative Research Programs Stephan A. Parker, Senior Program Officer Megha Khadka, Senior Program Assistant Eileen P. Delaney, Director of Publications Natalie Barnes, Editor TCRP PROJECT B-37 PANEL Field of Service Configuration Charles R. Carr, Mississippi DOT, Jackson, MS (Chair) James K. Callihan, McLaren-Rose Research Corporation, Vancouver, WA Barbara K. Cline, West River Transit Authority, Inc., Spearfish, SD Donald L. Dean, California DOT, Sacramento, CA Lawrence F. Hughes, Lawrence F. Hughes Consulting, Flushing, NY Randy Isaacs, Isaacs & Associates / Greyhound State Government Affairs, Hendersonville, TN David L. Marsh, Capital Area Rural Transportation System, Austin, TX Chris Nutakor, FTA Liaison Thipakorn Souvandara, FTA Liaison Daniel Hoff, American Bus Association Liaison Patricia Monahan, National Rural Transit Assistance Program Liaison Charles A. Rutkowski, Community Transportation Association of America Liaison Kimberly Fisher, TRB Liaison AUTHOR ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The research conducted to produce this report under TCRP Project B-37, “Estimation of Demand for Rural Intercity Bus Services,” was undertaken by the KFH Group, Inc. The final report was a collabora- tive effort by a number of contributors. Frederick D. Fravel, Vice President, was Principal Investigator. Reyes Barboza of the KFH Group had a major role in data collection and analysis. Jason Quan was instru- mental in the development of the toolkit. We also wish to acknowledge the valuable contributions of Jason K. Sartori of Integrated Planning Consultants, LLC, who provided significant assistance in the statistical analysis and development of models. In addition, Nancy McGuckin, National Household Travel Survey support team member, was happy to help with trip rate data analysis. Additional contributors at KFH Group included Lib Fetting, Steve Gehrke, and Beth Hamby. Linda Lee Ryden of the KFH Group produced the report. The study team would also like to thank the state program managers, project contacts, and bus opera- tors who responded to our surveys and provided their insights regarding rural intercity bus demand. In addition, we appreciate the contributions of the project panel in guiding and assisting the project team. C O O P E R A T I V E R E S E A R C H P R O G R A M S

TCRP Report 147: Toolkit for Estimating Demand for Rural Intercity Bus Services provides a sketch-planning guide and supporting CD-ROM–based tools that can be used to forecast demand for rural intercity bus services. The tools use several methods to estimate demand and the report describes key considerations when estimating such demand. The toolkit will be of interest to planners, service providers, state transportation program managers, con- sultants, trade and professional organizations, and other stakeholders involved in trans- portation planning. Restructuring of intercity bus services has resulted in a shift away from serving rural com- munities to linking major cities and urbanized areas. Rural areas formerly served by these services are now lacking connections to the national intercity bus network. FTA Section 5311(f) funding is available to provide planning, capital, and operating assistance for inter- city bus services serving rural areas. However, many states and rural (regional and local) operators are unsure about the potential demand for rural intercity bus service and how that demand might vary. Research was needed to develop tools for forecasting rural intercity bus ridership for use by both service providers and state transportation program managers. Under TCRP Project B-37, KFH Group was tasked to develop a sketch-planning guide and supporting tools that could be used by state transportation department program man- agers and both public and private rural intercity bus service providers to forecast demand for rural intercity bus services. The study team accomplished the research objectives by (1) conducting stakeholder interviews of federal and state officials, industry and professional associations, key intercity carriers, consultants, and others to determine the current state of demand forecasting and identify examples of existing rural intercity services that were contacted to obtain service descriptions and ridership data; (2) conducting surveys of rural intercity projects to get details on the nature of the project, including service characteris- tics, service area, ticketing and information, ridership (including trends), and forecasting methods used to plan the services; (3) identifying and evaluating existing rural intercity bus forecasting methods from information supplied by stakeholders, providers, and the lit- erature; (4) developing a sketch-planning guide and supporting tools, data, and method- ologies to enable users to forecast rural intercity bus ridership; and (5) providing a final report and Microsoft® PowerPoint presentation to document the research process and the forecasting tools. The toolkit can assist service providers in answering questions such as: What is the poten- tial ridership for different routes serving different population centers? Would the ridership vary if the service provider is an intercity bus company as compared to another type of tran- sit operator? What is the ridership impact of connecting to an airport? The toolkit can assist F O R E W O R D By Stephan A. Parker Staff Officer Transportation Research Board

state transportation program managers by providing ridership estimates that are needed to answer questions such as: How do the proposed services affect prioritization of resources? Does demand justify the requested subsidies? How do the proposed services fit into the overall long-range state or regional transportation plans? The supporting tools are included on the accompanying CD-ROM that uses Microsoft Word and Excel files to enable the user to define potential routes, estimate ridership, and make adjustments to those estimates. Both a regression model and a trip rate model are employed, and both require U.S. Census data to be plugged into a formula. The CD-ROM includes the required Census population data for all urbanized areas (over 50,000 persons), urban clusters (2,500 to 50,000 persons), and Census-designated places (under 2,500 per- sons) from the 2000 Census. This report includes (1) the final report, which documents the development of the toolkit, including a review of existing intercity bus ridership estimation techniques; docu- mentation of the survey process used to collect data on ridership; and service characteris- tics of rural intercity routes; (2) the accompanying CD-ROM, which includes the Rural Intercity Bus Service Demand Model and supporting data; and (3) a set of instructions for using the CD-ROM. A Microsoft PowerPoint presentation that provides some background on the model and a worked example showing how to estimate ridership on a proposed rural intercity bus route is available on the TCRP Project B-37 web page (apps.trb.org/cmsfeed/TRBNet ProjectDisplay.asp?ProjectID=1591).

C O N T E N T S 1 Summary 7 Chapter 1 Introduction 7 Background 8 Objectives of the Research Project 10 Chapter 2 Review of Rural Intercity Demand Methods and Rural Intercity Services 10 Literature Review: Approaches to Estimating Rural Intercity Bus Demand 13 Recent Examples of Efforts to Estimate Ridership on Rural Intercity Services 16 Other Issues Considered in Developing a Model 18 Chapter 3 Inventory of Existing Rural Intercity Routes and Ridership 18 Data Requirements 18 Development of a Survey Tool 19 Identification of Potential Survey Respondents 19 Survey 23 Data Compilation 25 Chapter 4 Rural Intercity Bus Classification Scheme 25 Traditional (Rural) Intercity Bus Service 29 Other Services: Regional Private and Rural Public 32 Adequacy of Survey Data 32 Reclassification 34 Unsubsidized Rural Routes 38 Chapter 5 Development of the Sketch-Planning Tool 38 Need for Variety of Models/Tools 40 Development of Demand Models 47 Conclusions 48 Chapter 6 The Toolkit 48 Format 57 Comparables/Route Descriptions 57 Other Issues That Were Addressed in the Final Version of the Toolkit 59 Chapter 7 Conclusions 59 Conclusions 61 Ideas for Future Research 64 References A-1 Appendix A Rural Intercity Provider Survey Form B-1 Appendix B Simplified Survey

C-1 Appendix C GIS Maps of Rural Intercity Bus Routes D-1 Appendix D Rural Intercity Bus Route–Level Data by State E-1 Appendix E Instructions for Use of the Toolkit CD for Estimating Demand of Rural Intercity Bus Services Note: Many of the photographs, figures, and tables in this report have been converted from color to grayscale for printing. The electronic version of the report (posted on the Web at www.trb.org) retains the color versions.