CHAPTER 1
Background and Overview of Research Approach
Background
Intercity buses, while once much more prominent in the American imagination and prevalent in their use, continue to play a crucial role in the U.S. transportation ecosystem. Buses operated by one of any number of privately and even some publicly operated carriers transport millions of passengers per year [Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) 2016], traveling over 30 billion passenger miles (John Dunham & Associates 2023), yet their role in the provision of mobility in the United States and across its northern and southern borders is not always well understood and appreciated; their use and impact are not documented as thoroughly as that of air, auto, or rail transportation. While at the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting, industry leaders and advocates have gathered at the meetings of the TRB Standing Committee on Rural, Intercity Bus, and Specialized Transportation to explore how to better illustrate the industry’s contribution to mobility.
Unlike the air, auto, rail, or local transit industries, the intercity bus industry is not represented by a broader agency under the U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT) in the same way as other modes of transportation; the FAA, the FHWA, the FRA, and the FTA, respectively, help communicate and advocate for each of these sectors’ services within the broader vision of a multimodal system for the United States. While the FMCSA works with the industry and its representatives to ensure safe operations, it covers motor coaches and road-hauled freight and advocates specifically for safety. Additionally, because of deregulation of the intercity bus industry in 1982 and further restructuring in the 2000s, the intercity bus market remains fractured, and information about its coverage and size lacks clarity and comprehensiveness. The details of the services provided by the private sector bus industry are not always well documented, creating further challenges for other industries trying to understand how the bus industry might fit with their own.
In the absence of information, stakeholders such as planners and policymakers as well as those within the industry itself, are left to plan and implement policy, funding, and operational decisions without the data or tools to do so efficiently and effectively. Given this level of understanding, a group of industry observers and stakeholders has worked to fill this gap in understanding of the intercity bus network in recent years. Michael Buiting, director of the American Intercity Bus Riders Association (AIBRA), undertook one major exercise with his development of the AIBRA map. The U.S. BTS later built on this and other efforts when it began an Intercity Bus Atlas (ICBA) hosted on its website.
This project, conducted under the TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP), endeavored to continue the development and implementation of this resource, originally as the National Intercity Bus Atlas and now as the ICBA in recognition of services crossing the nation’s borders into its northern and southern neighbors. Continuing the workflow established
by the BTS and using a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to engage carriers in sharing their General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) data, this project hoped to expand the ICBA to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the intercity bus network by (1) engaging the industry in providing service data and (2) developing resources for advancement, maintenance, and use of the ICBA.
The project has supported the continued availability and enhancement of the ICBA map. Figure 1 shows the map that has been produced by BTS using the data gathered during this project. The map is available on the BTS website: https://www.bts.gov/intercity-busing/data-maps-and-apps.
Research Approach and Objectives
NCHRP Project 08-133(01) was conducted by a research team consisting of Resource Systems Group, Inc. (RSG), Arcadis IBI Group (Arcadis), and Foursquare ITP. Brian Antolin of CoTo Travel and Joseph Schwieterman of DePaul University were part of the research team for the predecessor study, NCHRP Project 08-133. Research was conducted under two contracts, beginning in March 2021 and continuing through December 2024, with a hiatus in the spring and summer of 2023.
Phase I
The primary objective of the ICBA project was to collect route and schedule data from carriers to populate a map showing where service does and does not exist, with additional work focused on identifying methods to maintain and advance the atlas after the close of the NCHRP project and to provide guidance to stakeholders looking to leverage the information collected. Initial work toward these goals was centered around establishing a robust plan for engagement with the intercity bus industry and beginning to develop processes for efficient data collection and transfer. This phase of the project was completed under the project’s initial contract.
After project kick-off with the panel, the first work undertaken was to compile a list of intercity bus carriers to be targeted for inclusion in the ICBA. Using an earlier list compiled by the AIBRA and building on it with input from industry experts, the research team identified 126 carriers to engage, alongside 110 additional carriers providing longer-distance services (often rural transit agencies). The research team also worked to develop and implement a dashboard for tracking GTFS submissions, housed within the TRANSIT-data-tools platform provided as an open source resource by research team member Arcadis.
After identifying carriers to include, an engagement plan was developed to solicit cooperation from the carriers selected and then implemented by the research team. This effort was multipronged and included a project website with information about the project and access to its MOU, mailed outreach to carriers and state DOT contacts, webinars to provide information to interested parties and collect information from stakeholders on existing gaps and important links to target in the atlas, an intercity bus industry newsletter published by DePaul University’s Chaddick Institute and research team member Joe Schwieterman, attendance at industry events, coordination with ticketing service provider Transcor Data Services, and direct outreach to many carriers.
Although many carriers already did have their schedules and other information compiled as GTFS feeds, not all did, and the research team recognized the importance of providing guidance to carriers interested in developing their own GTFS and developing documentation of technical processes for internal team members. The effort to meet these needs was paired with the development of pathways for data submission to allow for the efficient collection of information from participating carriers.
Phase II
The second phase of the project followed the publication of an interim report at the closing of phase 1. This phase began with an effort to (1) continue outreach to carriers to solicit participation in the ICBA effort and (2) offer technical assistance to those carriers encountering issues with maintaining or developing GTFS. Research team members at RSG and Arcadis cooperated extensively at this stage of the project. One primary element of the technical assistance developed and conducted as part of this project task was the creation of documentation for the TRANSIT-data-tools platform developed and maintained by Arcadis. A comprehensive user manual was written and published and included links to make this documentation easily accessible from within the platform.
This guide introduces users to the process of managing data in the tool, thereby empowering them to employ its version control features to ensure proper maintenance of GTFS feeds, organize feeds from multiple carriers if needed, and utilize multiple feed sources (feeds can be added to the platform directly through links or direct uploads in addition to direct creation within TRANSIT-data-tools). Additionally, users can set up user accounts and configure various levels of permissions for these accounts, like editing feeds and viewing feeds, or permissions specific to individual feeds. While related to the creation of feeds, this section also includes a discussion on how to set up feed transformations, which allows users to automatically apply a set of changes to all new feeds added.
The guide also walks users through the creation of GTFS within the platform. This includes how to (1) place stops within the map, either by clicking on a location or manually adding latitude and longitude; (2) create routes and link stops to create specific trip patterns, especially relevant when some trips skip certain stops; (3) input schedules and calendars for the routes that have been created; and (4) add additional information like fares and agency information to a feed. Since the tool does include a built-in GTFS validation functionality, the guide also provides an appendix with common validation warnings and their meanings.
The research team continued to engage with the industry throughout this phase of the project, contacting carriers via email and phone to solicit participation in the atlas. While outreach was holistic and included many carriers contacted in earlier phases of the project, the research team focused efforts on carriers that could fill gaps in the current map where little service was already included, namely in the Upper Plains (Nebraska and the Dakotas), Mountain West (Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming), and Alaska. Carriers identified as serving these regions were contacted three times over the course of a month (approximately), with the research team offering information about the project, the multiple pathways available to submit data, and the benefits of developing GTFS if this data had not already been developed.
In discussions with these and other carriers, the research team offered assistance in developing GTFS. Three carriers expressed interest in receiving assistance and eventually participated in online training. The first training session took place on January 20, 2023, and the second took place on March 29, 2023. These training sessions lasted around one hour each; representatives from Arcadis and RSG guided participants through the platform’s various functions. One of these sessions was recorded so it could be distributed and used to develop training materials in the future. Other technical assistance was also offered to these carriers as they continued to develop GTFS for their services and to all other carriers contacted.
In addition to the technical assistance process just described, this phase of the project also included the development of two related user guides for parties interested in the ICBA: one for intercity bus carriers, ticketing services, schedulers, and business development planners and another for state, local, tribal, and territorial entities. These documents lead their audiences through their respective uses of the ICBA. The first, for the bus industry itself, introduces readers
to the ICBA, discusses the benefits of participating, introduces GTFS and the GTFS development process, and covers resources available for those interested in developing GTFS. The second, for planners at state, local, tribal, and territorial entities, also begins with an introduction to the ICBA, follows with supporting an understanding of GTFS, and concludes with sections featuring different use cases or analyses that planners can conduct using layers from the ICBA or GTFS feeds, either alone or in combination with other sources of data.
Phase III
The final phase of this project focused on how to maintain and expand the ICBA so it remains a useful source of information. In addition to this report, this phase included the development of a guide for the maintenance and advancement of the ICBA. This guide outlines considerations for the future, resources and tasks required for maintenance of the atlas in its current state and for planned expansion, and recommendations for steps to follow once the NCHRP project closes. Chapters discussing each of these are broken down into sections relating to three primary areas of responsibility for the organization inheriting the atlas: what is needed for building and maintaining relationships with carriers and other industry stakeholders; what is needed for GTFS maintenance, support, and development; and what is needed to ensure effective training and onboarding for carriers hoping to participate in the project.