State of Transportation in a Day without Metro in the Washington Region

The Washington region’s Metrorail, the second busiest rapid transit system in the United States, was completely shut down on Wednesday, March 16, 2016 for urgent track repairs. This extraordinary real-life event provided a unique opportunity to investigate the impact of this vital Metrorail system and the effectiveness of the region’s long-history, robust alternative commute programs. Traffic congestion, vehicle volume, bus and commuter rail ridership on the day of the shutdown were compared to the immediate previous Wednesdays in March. The regional travel forecasting model executed a test scenario assuming no Metrorail mode available but keeping other conditions unchanged. The investigation revealed that traffic congestion and bus ridership increased in the regional core, where the Metrorail serves well. In the rest of region, both congestion and transit ridership went down, indicating that a large percentage of regular commuters teleworked or changed schedule on the day of the shutdown. Without such flexible options, the region would have seen a very significant increase in bus and commuter rail ridership and congestion increase in the District of Columbia, as indicated by the regional travel forecasting model. These observations shed light on the resilience of the Washington region’s transportation systems, and could be a useful reference for future planned or unplanned events related to the Metrorail and other cities’ rapid transit systems.

• 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:
  • Pu, Wenjing
  • McCall, Nicole
  • Seifu, Meseret
  • Hampton, Benjamin
  • Milone, Ronald
  • Griffiths, Robert
  • Meese, Andrew J
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 96th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2017-1-8 to 2017-1-12
• Date: 2017

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 18p
• Monograph Title: TRB 96th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Bus transit; Modal shift; Network analysis (Planning); Rail transit; Railroad commuter service; Ridership; Telecommuting; Traffic congestion; Traffic forecasting
• Identifier Terms: Metrorail (Washington Metropolitan Area); Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority
• Geographic Terms: Washington Metropolitan Area
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01627716
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 17-00132
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 27 2017 5:12PM