Strategic Station Access Planning for Commuter Rail: Balancing Park-and-Ride with Other Modes

At most suburban rail stations, park-and-ride is the dominant use and the preferred access mode for most riders. Many transit agencies are trying to reduce their reliance on park-and-ride facilities and to encourage greater access by more sustainable modes. The recently released TCRP Report 153: Guidelines for Providing Access to Public Transportation Stations outlines a process to identify multimodal access priorities at high-capacity transit stations, and to weigh the benefits and trade-offs. This paper presents a case study analysis of how this station access planning process could be adapted and applied to a commuter rail network. The analysis considered the GO Transit rail system, which at the time of the study operated more than 65,000 park-and-ride spaces across 62 stations in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton area of Ontario, Canada. In general, the TCRP process provided an effective approach to develop a strategic station access plan. However, several ways in which the process could be improved were identified. The paper recommends policy scenario analysis as a consultative and analytical approach to prepare a systemwide station access policy. The paper also presents a decision-making framework to assess parking needs at the individual station level and provides an example of how this framework was used to make trade-offs during the station access planning process, with balanced investment in park-and-ride and other access modes. Overall, station access planning exercises should attempt to build recommendations from the top down (i.e., station access policy) and the bottom up (i.e., decision-making framework) to ensure that proposed solutions support the overall policy direction while they respond to the individual station context.

• Record URL:
  https://doi.org/10.3141/2419-08
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://www.trb.org/Main/Blurbs/172179.aspx
• Authors:
  • Engel-Yan, Joshua
  • Rudra, Malvika
  • Livett, Christopher
  • Nagorsky, Rebecca
• Publication Date: 2014

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Features: Figures; Maps; References; Tables;
• Pagination: pp 82–91
• Monograph Title: Transit 2014, Volume 5
• Serial:
  • Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board
  • Issue Number: 2419
  • Publisher: Transportation Research Board
  • ISSN: 0361-1981

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Access; Case studies; Decision making; Park and ride; Policy analysis; Railroad commuter service; Transportation policy
• Identifier Terms: GO Transit
• Subject Areas: Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; Policy; Public Transportation; Railroads; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01516610
• Record Type: Publication
• ISBN: 9780309295543
• Report/Paper Numbers: 14-1374
• Files: PRP, TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 28 2014 1:32PM