Paper Details

TRB 90th Annual Meeting (January 23-27, 2011)

Event Number:	233
Event Title:	Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Applications, Part 1 (Part 2, Session 289)
Event Date:	Jan 24 2011 8:00AM- 9:45AM
Event Location:	Hilton, Columbia Hall 7
Event Description:
Event Agenda:

Analysis of Transit Service Coverage Level-of-Service Measures at Border Regions and Suggested Alternative Procedure (11-3779)

Transit service spatial availability is a key parameter in attracting ridership. The Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual (TCQSM) provides a simple methodology to analyze the Service Coverage-Level of Service (SC-LOS) for fixed-route transit service. The SC-LOS is determined from the percentage of Transit Supportive Area (TSA) that has transit service coverage, that is, within a certain walking distance from a bus stop. The method of determining TSA based on zonal demographic and economic data, as described in TCQSM, may not lead to the most accurate estimation of SC-LOS for an area where there is a significant influx of transit passengers from external sources such as across the international border. If such ridership pattern exists, an onboard passenger Origin-Destination (O-D) survey method is proposed in this research to gather trip data to supplement the TCQSM’s TSA estimates. Data from a recent onboard O-D survey conducted in the west side of the U.S.-Mexican border city of El Paso, Texas, showed that without using the onboard O-D survey data, the percentage of service area covered by transit and the SC-LOS were underestimated.

Authors
     Galicia, Luis David, University of Texas, El Paso
     Rajbhandari, Rajat , Texas A&M University
     Cheu, Ruey Long, University of Texas, El Paso
     Aldrete, Rafael Manuel, Texas A&M Transportation Institute