REVIEW OF ROUTE-LEVEL RIDERSHIP PREDICTION TECHNIQUES (ABRIDGMENT)

An important trend in the local transit planning field is away from large-scale, capital intensive planning toward low-cost operational planning. Because most major transit and highway facilities are in place, greater consideration is being given to making minor changes to improve the efficiency and increase the capacity of existing transit services. Transit managers need to predict the effect of proposed service changes on ridership for a variety of reasons: (a) to allocate vehicle and manpower resources, (b) to prepare budget requests for proposed service plans, and (c) as inputs into the detailed route planning and scheduling that must accompany new service plans. To perform these tasks adequately, route-level patronage models must be sensitive to service characteristics as well as to the more traditional socioeconomic characteristics of the area the route passes through. The service quality measures most often affected by the route-level service modifications made by most transit properties are headway adjustment, route extension and contraction, limited and express service, shortlining, branching, through routing, creating transfer opportunities, fare adjustments, and new hours of service. A review of techniques that are currently used in the industry for predicting route-level ridership is presented. This review is based on discussions with the planning staffs of 40 transit agencies. Seven criteria were selected for evaluating the various techniques: accuracy, sensitivity, range of application, analyst dependence, cost of application, technical sophistication, and transferability.

• Record URL:
  • http://onlinepubs.trb.org/Onlinepubs/trr/1983/936/936-006.pdf
• Summary URL:
  • https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=REVIEW+OF+ROUTE-LEVEL+RIDERSHIP+PREDICTION+TECHNIQUES+(ABRIDGMENT)&author=H.+Menhard&author=G.+Ruprecht&publication_year=1983
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• Supplemental Notes:
  • Distribution, posting, or copying of this PDF is strictly prohibited without written permission of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences. Unless otherwise indicated, all materials in this PDF are copyrighted by the National Academy of Sciences. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Publication of this paper sponsored by Committee on Public Transportation Planning and Development.
• Authors:
  • Menhard, H Robert
  • Ruprecht, Gary F
• Publication Date: 1983

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Features: Figures; References;
• Pagination: pp 22-24
• Monograph Title: Public transportation and transit operations planning
• Serial:
  • Transportation Research Record
  • Issue Number: 936
  • Publisher: Transportation Research Board
  • ISSN: 0361-1981

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Forecasting; Headways; Public transit; Quality of service; Ridership; Routing; Scheduling
• Uncontrolled Terms: Transit services
• Old TRIS Terms: Operating strategies
• Subject Areas: Administration and Management; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; I10: Economics and Administration;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00387633
• Record Type: Publication
• ISBN: 0309036526
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Sep 28 1984 12:00AM