Do Seasons Really Matter in Transit Ridership Profiles and Activities? A Closer Look at Seasonal Differences in Travel Patterns from the Long Island Rail Road Origin and Destination Survey

Transportation agencies traditionally limit data collection efforts to the spring and fall months with the expectation that these two seasons are best for measuring typical ridership patterns. Although transit ridership has reached an all-time high recently, re-testing of this seasonal assumption has only been conducted sporadically, with some studies several decades old. The time has come to re-evaluate whether the strict fall/spring protocols are still appropriate. From September 2012 through May 2014, a Customer Origin and Destination Survey was conducted for the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR), one of the nation’s largest commuter rail systems. There was some downtime, mostly limited to summer months and during major holiday periods, but a large portion of this effort included survey data collection during the winter season. This presents the opportunity to compare “typical” and “atypical” fall/spring riders with those of winter. Key measures from the survey have been selected and analyzed for two season groupings—fall/spring and winter. Several logistic regression models were developed using trip purpose, daypart traveled, and demographics with inconclusive results. However, a spatial analysis of destinations in Manhattan yielded significant geographic hot spots of customer’s trip ends, and standard deviational ellipses suggest that travel destinations differ in the winter compared to fall and spring. The traditional practice of avoiding winter transit rider surveying may still be warranted. However, further research is recommended with changes in specific protocols to take a closer look at trip purpose, daypart and demographic effects involved in seasonal travel via an experimental design.

  • Supplemental Notes:
    • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ABJ30 Standing Committee on Urban Transportation Data and Information Systems.
  • Corporate Authors:

    Transportation Research Board

    500 Fifth Street, NW
    Washington, DC  United States  20001
  • Authors:
    • Silver, Dan
    • Seltzer, Julia
    • Hsieh, Stan
    • Seidl, Dara
    • Rhindress, Mindy
  • Conference:
  • Date: 2016

Language

  • English

Media Info

  • Media Type: Digital/other
  • Features: Figures; Maps; References; Tables;
  • Pagination: 19p
  • Monograph Title: TRB 95th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 01593548
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Report/Paper Numbers: 16-3935
  • Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
  • Created Date: Mar 15 2016 10:07AM