Developing Guidelines for Evaluating, Selecting, and Implementing Suburban Transit Services (2006)

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3 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION AND RESEARCH APPROACH OVERVIEW An overriding thesis of the modern condition is the fact that mobility is becoming increasingly complex. Nationwide, economic growth has lead to commercial expansion and activity reaching further and further out to suburbia, creating more settings to which the transit industry has been asked to respond. These suburban communities are creating less dense and more auto dependent environments. For the transit industry, historically, these types of communities have been most difficult to serve, not having the density to support fixed route, but neither having the fiscal support to sustain demand-responsive services. With the price of fuel continuing to increase and the demand from constituent groups, such as older adults, to provide more mobility options the opportunity to revisit the state of the practice regarding the ability to deliver suburban services appears particularly germane. Through a series of research programs aimed at improving transit service in suburban land-use environments across the country, TCRP has begun the development of a process that transit operators can use to assist in the design of appropriate and effective transit services in the most challenging service areas. The goal of this research is to build upon those prior research efforts, including a new dynamic, the evaluation of the correlation of land use and transit, to determine if there are additional relationships that can be employed to further the potential that appropriate transit services can match concomitant land uses to improve public transportation efficiency and effectiveness. This report will document the research efforts beginning with the literature search and working through the detailed case studies to the results. As will be described, although there has been much work in the transit industry to wrestle with the difficulties of suburban transportation issues, including developing a long list of innovative, technology enhanced services, there are no “one size fits all” solutions. With regard to land-use connections, there are emerging data bases and resources that can be used to assist transit agencies in planning, but, to date, the lack of availability and lack of consistency of these resources limit their applicability. Further, in the detailed case studies, neither the land use, nor the transit data suggest specific approaches to predicting efficiency or effectiveness, though there are some trends worth reporting. Finally, the policy perspective regarding the success or failure of many suburban services is often not based on typical quantitative performance measurement factors, but more on qualitative concepts, such as value added to the community. These findings suggest that suburban transit service delivery remains more of an art than a science, but that the combination of innovation and technology, including the use of GIS incorporating land-use data, may lead to more uniform solutions in the future. To recapitulate, the methodology for this study is based on four fundamental efforts, described below: • Background research and preliminary analysis focused on reviewing previous studies in the area of suburban transit service, defining land-use components, describing the characteristics of transit services, and exploring the relationships between land-use and activity patterns, and how they relate to various types of transit service.

4 • Preliminary case studies generated a wealth of information on a wide range of agencies, identified common issues and trends faced by these agencies, and elucidated how agencies make decisions about what service to implement and how its performance will be measured. This effort also helped identify which agencies operate a variety of service types, which were willing to participate more heavily in the study, and what land-use and operating data they have available. • Detailed case studies offered the opportunity to follow-up with a limited number of agencies to better understand their operating environment, transit services, and political and funding situation, among others. Nine sites were selected and visited by a team member to collect various data, explore the service area, and meet with agency representatives. Qualitative information was synthesized for each site while the land-use data was used to generate an activity surface for the region or develop specific land-use statistics for the service areas of selected services. This information, along with service operating statistics and ridership data, was used to evaluate the relationship between land- use attributes or activity patterns and transit service. • Guidelines are the final component of the work. This step synthesizes findings from the detailed case studies and develops guidelines for operators and policy makers that can be used to inform their choice of transit service. The guidelines have been published separately as TCRP Report 116 (available online at http://trb.org/news/blurb_detail. asp?id=6525). UNDERSTANDING REGIONAL ACTIVITY PATTERNS The urban form of modern cities and contemporary suburbia is increasingly characterized by multiple activity centers. The polycentric city is a complex hierarchy of centers, corridors, and areas in between. Whereas a large share of trips in the pre-automobile city was focused radially on the downtown, the modern city is characterized by dispersed travel patterns in all directions. This is evidenced by the continuous rise in suburb-to-suburb travel over the last few decades. Recognizing that traditional downtown-oriented transit services no longer align with most trips being made, TCRP Report 55 recommended that suburban transit services be developed around focal points and link to a broader regional network of line-haul transit services. In this manner, transit centers can be located near concentrations of trip origins and destinations, minimizing the need for transfers. The initial step in designing such a regional transit system involves understanding the intrinsically related patterns of development and travel demand. Travel demand is the sum of the individual trip origins and destinations of every traveler in the region. While this information can be represented in large trip matrices, as used in travel demand models, a useful method for visualizing regional development patterns and travel demand is the activity surface. As illustrated in Figure 1-1, an urban area can be thought of as a surface that represents the relative importance of each point across the metropolitan region. The relative importance of a point is a function of the number of activities that serve as the ends of trips, such as jobs, shopping, medical care, recreation, and housing. The activity surface of a pre-automobile city was a relatively simple convex surface with a noteworthy peak over the downtown, a single mountain in a large plain. The modern, polycentric city has a much more complex, bumpy

5 activity surface characterized by peaks of various heights over the traditional downtown and outlying centers, ridges connecting peaks along major corridors, and plains in between, where people live in sprawling subdivisions. Figure 1-1: Conceptual Activity Surfaces by Urban Form Supported by tools such as the activity surface, this project explores the relationship between the land-use characteristics and travel patterns of the service area, the operating characteristics of the service, and the service’s performance on a range of suburban transit services. These relationships provide guidelines that transit operators and policy makers may use to inform their decisions on where to operate service and what characteristics the service should have, given different performance expectations. TCRP Report 55 identified six types of suburban land-use environments based on their diversity of uses and how the intensity of their development (density) relates to that of the surrounding area. These environments included residential suburbs, balanced mixed-use suburbs, suburban campuses, edge cities, suburban corridors, and exurban corporate enclaves. Thinking back to the discussion of the activity surface, each topographical feature of the activity surface corresponds to one or more of these suburban environments: • Peaks represent the major activity centers, such as downtowns, shopping centers, edge cities, and community business districts. In a polycentric city, peaks have various heights based on their relative share of the region’s total residential, employment, commercial, medical, and recreational activity. Edge cities and downtowns of balanced mixed-use suburbs are examples of peaks. Peaks generally have urban characteristics – a diversity of uses, higher densities, and perhaps deterrents to driving. • Ridges represent the major travel corridors in a region. These corridors frequently connect peaks and are often lined with higher density residential, employment, or commercial uses. Suburban corridors are examples of ridges. Ridges have more suburban qualities – less diversity and design conditions where there are large gaps in the street wall, although there may well be deterrents to driving in the form of traffic congestion. • Points represent places in the region that are destinations for trips, but that do not necessarily fall on peaks or ridges. Suburban areas are characterized by a relatively high share of destinations that are not located within walking distance of other major activity centers or on major transportation corridors. Suburban campuses and exurban corporate

6 enclaves are examples of points. Points are largely characteristic of suburbs, without the qualities of urban areas. • Plains represent the large areas of relatively low density residential, office or industrial development that frequently serve as one end of a trip. Residential suburbs are examples of plains. Again, plains are largely a phenomena of suburbia and do not have high diversity, density, design, or deterrents to driving. Appendix A contains more detailed and supplemental information regarding the potential use of land-use data to look at framing the connection with transit. The next section continues this discussion of development patterns and appropriate transit services with a discussion of the types of transit services that are available to improve mobility in suburban environments. FEATURES OF SUBURBAN TRANSIT SERVICES As suburbs expand and the suburban population grows, it is increasingly apparent that traditional transit service is often not suited to meet suburban mobility and accessibility needs. In spite of significant investments in transit services, transit’s mode share is challenged overall, even for commute trips - transit’s biggest market. As discussed previously, the private automobile offers the convenience and flexibility that many people often take for granted in their daily travels. However, congestion, fuel costs, mobility needs of the transportation disadvantaged and environmental concerns require that alternatives to private automobiles and driving alone be viable and available. With a commitment to providing transportation alternatives in suburban locations comes the understanding among public decision makers and transit agencies that traditional transit paradigms may not be an effective alternative and must be redefined to better serve suburban markets. Traditional, fixed-route may not meet passengers’ mobility and accessibility needs. Therefore, there needs to be a commitment to try new things – to develop new ways to provide transit such that it offers benefits similar to automobiles. Benefits of private cars, and consequently desirable attributes of suburban transit, include: • Near door-to-door service • Flexible routing and scheduling • Service on demand • Relatively fast trips • Real-time information • Comfort • Convenience In order to provide these attributes in suburban transit service, transit agencies must develop transportation solutions that are tailored to the specific circumstances of their service area. Services must reflect the transportation needs of the community, the operating environment, and demographics. The research has indicated the types of transit services that operate within a range of suburban environments. These are briefly discussed here and more thoroughly described in Appendix B.

7 Established Suburban Transit Services Fixed Routes Among the most commonly deployed transit service, fixed routes are those which follow a predetermined alignment and schedule. Fixed routes may operate more frequently than other service forms, providing service during peak hours or all day. These include: • Trunk • Express • Limited Service • Circulators • Shuttles and Feeders Deviated Fixed Routes In deviated fixed-route service, vehicles have the flexibility to move within a given service area as long as they arrive on schedule at various time points. Often the time points are located at transit hubs where passengers can transfer to trunk or express service. Deviated fixed- routes frequently use smaller vehicles, whether they are small buses or large vans. It is also common for these routes to have their own identities, with unique logos and color schemes. Deviated routes generally take one of three forms. The most flexible form of deviated fixed-route is essentially a demand-response service that has two time points, one on each end of a service area. A slightly more restricted service might have a vehicle running along a route between 4 or 5 time points, but deviating as necessary for passengers to board and alight. Another common variation is to have a vehicle follow a fixed route, but allow it to deviate up to a given distance (typically ½ or ¾ mile) from the route to pick-up or drop-off passengers. Examples of these services include: • Circulators • Shuttles Demand Responsive Services Demand responsive service, also called “dial-a-ride,” schedules vehicles to pick-up and drop-off passengers throughout a service area, providing high quality, curb-to-curb service for the general public and persons with disabilities. These services are particularly effective in areas with low-density development and/or widely dispersed trip generators that are hard to serve with a fixed-route or full-size coach. All of these trips require a call-in request. Advance notice requirements vary from days in advance to the actual time of the desired trip. Demand response services use smaller vehicles, whether they are small buses, large vans or taxis, which can navigate residential neighborhoods and narrow streets. Due to smaller passenger loads vehicles can follow more direct routes between origins and destinations, reducing trip travel times. Technological advances, including improved dispatching capabilities and real-time information, should allow transit systems to significantly reduce advance reservation requirements. Similar to the deviated fixed-route service described above, demand-response service is generally provided as either shuttle, feeder or circulator service. Demand response service is probably most commonly associated with social service transportation and is also utilized to

8 meet the paratransit requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). In the private sector, airport shuttles are probably the most common application of demand-response service. In the overall network of suburban transit services, demand-response service plays a critical role in serving niche markets that are not well served by fixed-route service and appears to be positioned to increase its relative profile in coming years. Subscription Services Subscription service offers a tailored transit service to specific individuals when they have paid a subscription fee. Many subscription services originated as private enterprises and have transitioned to public operation, although they may also be the result of a public/private partnership. Subscription vehicles, whether they be coaches or smaller vehicles, collect passengers at predetermined times and locations. Trips are scheduled to best meet the needs of a particular trip’s passengers in terms of the origin, destination and pickup and drop-off times. Subscription services tend to operate from residential environments that have low average densities but have concentrations of residents who have similar work locations. Subscription services often experience farebox recovery ratios much higher than other transit services because the demand for service is known in advance and because such a premium service demands higher fares. For the purposes of this document, the discussion of subscription services is limited to commute service, as this is the market upon which most public and public/private partnerships focus. However, it is worth noting that other subscription services exist for markets such as childcare, sporting events, and travel to airports. The most common examples of public subscription services are commuter buses and vanpools. Although some ADA trips are called “subscription” trips, in reference to a standing reservation for a particular trip made by a specific passenger, they are not included in this discussion. Rather these trips are classified as being part of demand-responsive service. Examples include: • Subscription Commute Buses • Vanpools Innovative Suburban Transit Service Innovations in technology have also led to innovations in various aspects of suburban transit services. These include the availability of real time information to assist both customers and service providers regarding schedule adherence, operating conditions, etc. In demand- response services, real time scheduling and dispatch programs can improve efficiency and effectiveness. Some systems have employed the use of cell phones to ensure more direct communication between customers and operators. Smart cards have become another means of improving transfers between systems and services plus reinforce the goal of seamless travel. In addition, vehicle design, such as low floor buses, have made accessing the vehicles easier for all age groups and automated stop announcements have assisted in the consistent availability of this information for people with disabilities. Examples include: Technology and Infrastructure Improvements • Real-Time Information • Transit Preferential Treatment

9 • Vehicle Modifications • Fare Technology Transit Services and the Activity Space The activity surface provides the basis for relating the spatial distribution of travel demand and the optimal arrangement of transit centers, line-haul routes, and other transit services. All transit services can be organized around the topographical features on the activity surface, as shown below: • Peaks are the largest destinations for travel by all modes and are generally served by the highest frequency, highest capacity transit services in a region. They are also generally the best locations for transit hubs because the concentration of routes serves travel demand from all directions and the concentration of trip ends minimizes the need to transfer. • Ridges generally represent the best locations for traditional line-haul transit services, including rail and fixed-route bus services, since they have a relatively high number of trip ends within walking distance and the mix of uses provides a source of relatively high, all-day travel demand. • Points are among the most difficult locations to effectively serve with fixed-route transit. Not only are points geographically dispersed, but their travel demand also tends to be concentrated at certain times of day. As a result, these places tend to be poorly served by transit. Frequently they receive little or no service at non-peak times, are served by dedicated trips or scheduled route deviations that can confuse customers, or require customers to walk a long distance to a mainline bus route. Defining strategies to effectively serve points is one of the major objectives of this research. • Plains are also notoriously difficult to serve with fixed-route transit because of the low density, coarsely grained mix of land uses, and lack of well-connected pedestrian facilities frequently found in suburban residential areas. As with points, identifying strategies to effectively serve plains is one of the major objectives of this research. At this juncture in the process the research team convened and, based on the background information gathered regarding land-use and service attributes, developed a candidate list of preliminary case study locations. PRELIMINARY CASE STUDIES This section outlines the findings from preliminary case studies completed for twenty- eight transit operators. These initial case studies served multiple roles, including to: • Confirm the range of transit service formats operating in suburban environments, • Understand how agencies evaluate the performance of their transit services, • Identify key issues and trends facing suburban transit, and • Compare the characteristics of transit service with aspects of the suburban land form as described with the activity surface concept. A number of techniques were used to select sites for the initial case studies. The techniques used included reviewing transit agency websites, identifying appropriate sites from

10 the literature search, requesting information via a list serve, and applying our professional knowledge of transit properties. The final choice of case study locations was done to balance the size and geographical coverage of agencies, while ensuring that unique programs were also included. The following is the list of the twenty-eight transit agencies that were part of the initial case studies. The list is organized first by geographic region (West, Midwest, South, and East) and then by agency size (starting with the smallest agencies). West • Livermore Amador Valley Transit Authority (LAVTA) • South Metro Area Rapid Transit (SMART) • Eastern Contra Costa County Transit Authority (Tri Delta Transit) • Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) • Pierce Transit • Valley Metro • Metropolitan Transit Development Board (MTDB) • King County Metro (Metro) • Denver Regional Transit District (Denver RTD) • Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District (TriMet) Mid-West • Champaign – Urbana Mass Transit District (C-UMTD) • Des Moines Metropolitan Transit Authority (DMMTA) • Madison Metro • Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation (SMART) • Toledo Area Regional Transit Authority (TARTA) • Kansas City Area Transportation Authority (KCATA) • Metropolitan Council • Pace, Suburban Bus Division of the Regional Transportation Authority (Pace) South • Broward County, Florida and municipalities within the County • Fort Worth Transportation Authority • Charlotte • Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) East • Potomac and Rappahannock Transportation Commission (PRTC) • Merrimack Valley Regional Transit Authority (MVRTA) • Capital District Transportation Authority (CDTA) • Transportation District Commission of Hampton Roads (HRT) • Rhode Island Public Transportation Authority (RIPTA) • New Jersey Transit (NJ TRANSIT)

11 In addition to accumulating a wealth of information on a wide range of agencies, it has become clear that there are many common issues and trends faced by these agencies, but there are diverging conclusions being made about their services. The following section discusses these issues and trends in greater detail. Appendix C provides the analysis of the initial case studies. Case study methodology is discussed in detail in Appendix D. Key Issues and Trends A number of key issues and trends emerged from the analysis of the initial case studies. The range of services offered by the agencies included in the case studies can be grouped into the following categories: • Commuter • Route deviation • Demand response • Circulators • Shuttles • Vanpools The commuter services are typically premium operations designed to attract a higher income market through various service attributes, or reverse commute operations, which usually operate during non-traditional hours and are often funded by Job Access Reverse Commute (JARC) funds. Another trend is that premium commuter services require a higher farebox recovery ratio than standard fixed routes to be considered successful. Using an employee from the job site as the driver, creating a “bus-pool” is one innovation observed at a case study site. Success with route-deviation services, sometimes in concert with demand-responsive service, has been mixed. Several areas have abandoned or greatly reduced this type of service based on a variety of difficulties, including schedule adherence, customer complaints about advance scheduling and lack of buy-in by operational personnel. Some properties believed that mixing a fixed schedule with demand-responsive routing was a conflict in philosophies. However, other properties appeared to successfully combine these concepts, especially when they were implemented as a substitute for existing service (as opposed to a standalone, new service). Some agencies considered route-deviated services successful if they exceeded the productivity rate of the local demand-responsive service, while others considered route deviation successful if their productivity was comparable to the fixed-route average. Among demand-responsive services, zone systems that capture internal trips or link passengers to fixed routes have been successfully implemented. The size of the zone (including the number of attractions) and the availability of other services appeared to significantly affect productivity. The standards used to rate success varied by agency. Some services named “shuttles” by their operating agency are similar to the demand- responsive services described above, while others were more fixed in nature, connecting neighborhoods or providing service to employment centers through connections at rail stations or transit hubs. Employer shuttles appeared to perform best with sustained employer participation. The information collected thus far on vanpools and ridesharing also varies by agency, with a key factor in agency participation being the ownership of the vehicles. In addition, one innovative service used by Pace is to keep vans at Metra stations to connect workers to their place of employment. This also resembles a car sharing methodology, sometimes termed station cars, that has been employed in more urban areas of the country.

12 In addition to these observed services, there are several other issues that are worth additional discussion, such as: • Performance measurement • Funding • Community interaction With regard to performance measurement, one of the most thorough efforts to quantify service performance was completed by Pierce Transit (WA). The performance criteria and standards for one of Pierce Transit’s services are shown in Table 1-1. Table 1-1: Performance Criteria and Standards Passengers per Cost per Vehicle Hour Boarding Passenger* New Routes (less than one year old): Satisfactory >3.0 pass/hr <$11.30/pass Unsatisfactory <3.0 pass/hr >$11.30/pass Routes one to two years old: Satisfactory >4.0 pass/hr <$8.50/pass Unsatisfactory <4.0 pass/hr >$8.50/pass Routes more than two years old: Satisfactory >5.0 pass/hr <$6.80/pass Unsatisfactory <5.0 pass/hr >$6.80/pass *All costs are in 2003 dollars. They should be indexed for inflation. Other performance measurement systems of note are the Met Council’s (Twin Cities) thorough review of zones every three years and the MTDB’s (San Diego) combination of quantity and quality of service goals. The quantitative criteria include: passengers per revenue mile, passengers per revenue hour and subsidy per passenger. The qualitative criteria can be grouped into three categories: transit supportive land uses, regional transportation priorities and quality of service. Denver RTD also uses performance measurement extensively for all types of services that they provide. Funding sources also appeared to influence both service availability and, to some degree, the productivity analysis. For example, a number of non-traditional services were funded by JARC or CMAQ, while several locales either had passed dedicated local funding taxes or were funded as a result of “opting out” of the transit district. In several instances, the lack of sustained funding from JARC or CMAQ determined if the service continued beyond the demonstration period. Similarly, those services with dedicated funding are often held to different performance standards. Another apparent trend was the interaction between local communities and transit agencies, where several programs were considered to be successful when transit dollars were

13 added to community dollars for the provision of services designed by the community. In other instances, lack of continued community enthusiasm was cited as a factor in discontinuing or reducing service. Assessment of Practices Interviews with representatives from the transit agencies from around the country revealed that many agencies use quantitative performance standards as they decide how to serve suburban areas that have uneven and relatively low demand. However, it was also evident that other factors heavily influence service design and provision decisions. A weak economy in many areas of the country has resulted in lower than usual farebox and sales tax revenues, thereby limiting funds available to transit systems. When faced with limited resources, many agencies have chosen not to invest operating funds in areas of relatively low transit demand. Instead, they have strategically invested their limited resources in areas of higher density, where the highest ridership and revenues can be realized. Alternatively, some agencies provide service in lower density suburban areas only when there is a funding source or partner that will pay for the many of the service’s expenses. For instance, in the Pace service district, no new suburban shuttle services are put in operation unless there is a major employer or a transportation management association (TMA) that will subsidize the cost of its operation. Hence, some of the services are being put into place not as the result of anticipated service performance, but as the result of dedicated funding. A number of the agencies interviewed stated that they simply do not use service guidelines or standards to inform their decisions on where and how to serve lower density suburban areas. Among these agencies, service changes tend to be very incremental. Service planners within these transit agencies are very familiar with their communities and the changes that are taking place. The transit planners use their professional judgment, based on their local experience and understanding what kinds of development are likely to attract transit users, and allocating their resources accordingly. This professional judgment is often augmented by new service requests and political influence, expressed as interest in service by transit board members or other politicians. In the majority of cases reviewed, newer, more flexible forms of transit have been substituted for unproductive fixed-route service. Transit agencies are realizing that traditional, fixed-route services are no longer viable in certain areas, or for certain bus routes, due to extremely low ridership. However, they still want to provide mobility options to expanded service areas. Route deviated service, point deviation service, or some form of demand-response call and ride service have a number of advantages under these circumstances: • The transit agency does not leave former fixed-route passengers stranded without any service. This is important to the passengers, but also to the transit boards who see themselves as providers of mobility options. • The sense of equity is maintained by providing broader coverage service throughout the area that supports the transit agency with taxes. Equity is a rational used by transit agencies looking for political support at upcoming referenda for continued or expanded transit services. • New, flexible service is often less expensive than traditional, fixed-route service since it is sometimes contracted out and provided with smaller vehicles. The savings are

14 increased with flexible services because complementary paratransit service is not required where flexible, accessible transit is equally available to all passengers. • Smaller vehicles are often more compatible with the sensitivities of suburban neighborhoods, which are often sensitive to the noise and pollution generated by full- sized transit buses. These smaller vehicles are better able to negotiate crowded shopping centers, narrow residential streets, or the turns necessary to accommodate deviation requests. These reasons for using more flexible service to substitute for traditional fixed-route service are generally sufficient justification for a transit agency, leaving it without a pressing need to develop separate standards or guidelines. However, there are a number of agencies that measure the performance of new, flexible services. Generally this is done because the agency has very limited financial resources and might have to cut even these less expensive services (as has happened in Ft. Worth, Texas where eight different flex routes were tried and terminated), or because the agency regards these services as any other, and they need to be continuously reviewed to ensure that they are being used in the most appropriate locations (as in Tacoma, Washington). The specific performance standards used to judge these newer services vary dramatically, though there is some agreement on the general expectations of flexible services. The most commonly used quantitative performance measure is passengers per hour. Virtually all transit agencies expect flexible services to perform better than standard paratransit service, but worse than traditional fixed-route service. Most agencies are satisfied with service that carries between four and eight passengers per hour. Some perform slightly worse than this, but are maintained as “lifeline” services, while a few others have performed better than eight passengers per hour. The Tri Met system in the Portland, Oregon area requires its local suburban circulators to maintain a productivity level of 15 passengers per hour. Some agencies include the subsidy per passenger as another quantitative performance measure. Once again, the specific standard varies due to different cost structures around the country and different budget constraints, but at first blush the range of values is between $4.50 and $11.30. Less often, transit agencies use the farebox recovery ratio as a primary determinant of whether the new transit service is viable. A minimum standard between 20 and 25 percent is the typical threshold for continued service. It should also be noted that agencies often provide different “probationary periods” during which they expect these new services to become established. The standard time frame ranges from one to three years, with 18 months as an average. In addition to the quantitative measures that drive service decisions, there are often qualitative reasons. As noted earlier, many of new, flexible services are started as substitutes for unproductive fixed-route service. In areas where flexible transit is introduced as a new service, the qualitative factors influencing the decision to provide the service have included: • Specific requests from major employment centers or communities, many of whom offer to help pay for the expense of providing the service. • Strategic placement of service within communities to build support for transit referendums. • Geographic or topographic characteristics that make the provision of regular fixed-route service impractical.

15 • A residential community’s proximity to premium transit service, such as rail or BRT stations. • A regional transit agency’s desire to provide faster, more direct service. This is often accomplished by straightening trunk-line routes on major arterials and creating feeder routes to serve areas once served by the fixed route. • A priority to minimize traffic congestion and air pollution by providing a transit link between premium transit services and major employment centers. • An interest to provide mobility services to residents of areas with relatively high unemployment to support their entry into the workforce. • A goal to provide for internal community trips with vehicles that can easily access shopping centers and other areas with relatively crowded and/or tight lane conditions. • Providing service with smaller vehicles that are more acceptable to certain neighborhoods. • A policy that all residents within a service area will have access to some form of public transit, even if it is limited service, as a “lifeline” for those with no other affordable mobility options. • Regional policies that call for a relationship between different densities of land uses and levels of transit availability. • The availability of funds from sources such as Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program (CMAQ), Job Access Reverse Commute (JARC), or state grant programs for experimental services. • Providing different services at times or on days that normally see less transit demand. The specific quantitative and qualitative measures being used by the interviewed agencies are summarized in two appendices, which are described below. • Appendix F – the quantitative factors decision matrix lists each of the case study agencies and notes which performance measures they employ and the relevant standard (if available). • Appendix G – the qualitative factors decision matrix lists the case study agencies and notes which factors influence their decision to implement new service. RECOMMENDATION OF DETAILED CASE STUDY SITES Following the gathering of the above information, the research team then convened several times via conference call to discuss recommendations for detailed case studies. Those calls focused on the group’s desire to balance the geographic distribution and agency size, including sites from larger and more rural areas of the country, while representing transit properties that have specific policies guiding service implementation and those whose service choices appear to be more politically motivated. Other considerations were: the availability of land-use, demographic, and operations data to facilitate the development of the land-use analysis, and that the range of suburban transit services be represented by the sites. With these goals in mind, the team collectively decided that it would be of more value to select sites that operate a number of different types of services over those which only feature a small number of varied services (which would typically be replicated in other places with multiple services). The rationale was that this approach would allow showcasing and ultimately detailing more types of services through site visits. There was a discussion that there might be a

16 perception that the study highlights larger markets while omitting some smaller, rural sites because larger areas are more likely to offer more extensive and varied services. Similarly, preliminary work indicated that more robust land-use data may exist in some of the medium and larger transit properties. Because one of the goals is to illustrate the nexus between land use and suburban transit services, sites with more extensive data were given priority. To combat the perception that the guidebook is geared to larger transit agencies, the analysis will include discussions that focus on how our findings relate to all areas, especially transit agencies which operate in smaller metropolitan environments. The locations listed below are our final recommendation of sites and represent the team’s consensus, based on a thorough discussion of all the above factors and the preliminary case study locations. The recommended sites are: • King County Metro (Seattle, Washington) • Tri-Met (Portland, Oregon) and South Metro Area Rapid Transit (Wilsonville, Oregon) • Regional Transit District (Denver, Colorado) • Metropolitan Council (Minneapolis area, Minnesota) • Charlotte Area Transit System (Charlotte, North Carolina) • Suburban Mobility Authority for Rapid Transportation (Suburban Detroit, Michigan) • Broward County Transit (Broward County, Florida) • Capital District Transportation Authority (Albany, New York) As indicated in the following tables, the recommended sites provide broad geographical coverage, vary in size, and offer a wide range of service alternatives. Table 1-2: Case Study Sites by Agency Size (number of buses) Small (Less than 100 buses) Medium (100 – 600 buses) Large (More than 600 buses) South Metro Area Rapid Transit, SMART (OR) Capital District Transportation Authority, CDTA (NY) Charlotte Area Transit System, CATS (NC) Broward County Transit, BCT (FL) Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation, SMART (MI) Denver Regional Transit District, Denver RTD (CO) King County Metro, Metro (WA) Metropolitan Council, MetCouncil (MN) Tri-County Metropolitan Transit District, TriMet (OR)

17 Table 1-3: Case Study Sites by Agency Location East South Midwest West CDTA (NY) CATS (NC) BCT (FL) SMART (MI) MetCouncil (MN) SMART (OR) TriMet (OR) Metro (WA) Denver RTD (CO) Table 1-4: Case Study Sites by Transit Services Offered Through the detailed case studies of the eight sites listed above and the mini service evaluations, the team will cover the range of services that operate in suburban environments. These services include: commuter, trunk, shuttles, route deviation, and demand response. Although the research proposal called for the study of six sites, the scope was expanded to provide more geographic coverage. CASE STUDY RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Overview Once the case study sites were approved by the TCRP Panel, the research team developed a detailed data and information request form as shown in Appendix E. The form included both transit and land-use characteristics as summarized below: • Transit Characteristics o Service Characteristics ƒ % of households or jobs within service area; Response time (DAR); Number of vehicles in peak service; Intermodal hubs; Technology (Signal preemption/Next bus) Transit Services B C T (F L ) C D TA (N Y ) D en ve r R T D (C O ) M et C ou nc il (M N ) M et ro (W A ) SM A R T (O R ) SM A R T (M I) T ri M et (O R ) Fixed Route - Circulator/Shuttle 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 Demand Response 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 Flexible -Route Deviation -Point Deviation 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 Commuter -Bus -Vanpool 9 9 9 9

18 o Vehicle Characteristics ƒ Vehicle type; Capacity (seats/wheelchair positions); Technology (Annunciators, AVL, Smart Cards) • Route Characteristics o Headway (Peak/Off peak); Average speed; Trips per (Weekday/Saturday/Sunday); Route length (mi/hr); Service span (Weekdays/Saturday/Sunday) • Performance o Annual passengers; Revenue hours; Revenue miles; Vehicle hours; Vehicle miles; Cost/passenger; Cost/hour; Cost/mile; Subsidy/passenger; Farebox recovery ratio • Funding Sources • Transit Policy o Board role and involvement; Decision-making process; Guidelines; Performance Measurement System (describe); Organizational model; Other unique characteristics • Land Use & Travel Patterns o Key Attractions ƒ (Large employers, schools, shopping centers, medical centers, museums, arenas, hotels) o Land Use by Parcel ƒ Residential (dwelling units by parcel or block); Commercial (square footage of leasable space) o Travel Behavior ƒ Origin-Destination Travel Patterns; Trip Purposes; Trip Frequency; • Demographics o Household income; Car ownership; Age composition; Unemployment rate; Non- English speaking populations; Average household size; • Street Network Characteristics o Street width; Number of lanes; Speed limit; Signal spacing; ADT; V/C or LOS; Connectivity; Distance between bus stops • Transit Priority Features o Traffic signal priority; Queue jump lanes; Exclusive lanes • Parking Cost or Scarcity o Average cost of parking, metered parking, structures, etc. Although the transit service data were typically available from the affected agencies, due to the level of detail requested, it proved quite time consuming to interact with agency staff to acquire and refine data on a line by line basis. In addition, the coupling of the request for land- use information proved to take more time and often involved multiple agencies at the city, county and regional level. Further, there was a considerable lack of consistency between the data available at the various case study sites. During this period of the research, several issues became evident. First, based on a variety of factors, there was agreement to delete Charlotte from the list of case studies. Second, due to the inconsistency of land-use data and the time and resources

19 necessary to process that data into the full land-use analysis, the number of the studies in the category of highly available land-use data was reduced to four sites, Detroit, Minnesota, Portland and Wilsonville. Third, it was apparent from the level of inconsistency and availability of land- use information that developing sufficient linkages with transit services on a line level was logically going to be difficult. Appendix H contains the results from the case studies.