Development and Assessment of Performance Measures for Evaluating and Improving Regional Transit Coordination Using GTFS Data
The focus of the proposed study is to extend the application of General Transit Feed System (GTFS) data in order to develop performance measures and analytical techniques designed to evaluate, categorize and improve coordination of regional transit operations and services. While personal mobility in the United States relies heavily on the private automobile and associated infrastructure, numerous social, economic and environmental benefits can be achieved by fostering convenient and effective public transit systems. However, fostering convenient and efficient public transit systems will require both considerable investment and, important to this research, regional coordination. The separation of urban, suburban and exurban public transportation services has meant that people who travel across jurisdictions—e.g., .from cities to rural areas and between suburban areas—often find public transit a difficult or unviable mode of transportation; thus transit agencies and operators need to become less parochial and more unified and regional. This study seeks to build on the public transit quality of service, regional transit coordination and general transit feed system (GTFS) literatures to develop standards that are both meaningful and readily applicable to improving regional inter-agency transit operations and services. To this end, the project team's methodological approach is carried out in five steps: (1) The initial step is to conduct a comprehensive review on state-of-the-practices in regional coordination and, specifically, identify performance measures that are potentially relevant for evaluating coordination across complex jurisdictional transit terrains; (2) In step two, the project team aligns variables represented in the GTFS data with other relevant spatial information to operationalize—via Python scripts and a PostGIS spatial database—above performance measures or indices of regional transit coordination; (3) In step three the project team draws from previous research, reports and recent GTFS data to develop a stratified sample of regions with complex, multi-operator public transportation systems to test the performance measures; (4) In step four the project team executes the performance measures on the study areas delineated in step three; and (5) The final step entails surveying and interviewing select transit agencies to assess the accuracy and potential usefulness of the indices.
Language
- English
Project
- Status: Completed
- Funding: $79867
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Contract Numbers:
DTRT13-G-UTC60
TRC-15-02
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Sponsor Organizations:
Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology
University Transportation Centers Program
Department of Transportation
Washington, DC United States 20590 -
Managing Organizations:
Transportation Research Center for Livable Communities
Western Michigan University
Kalamazoo, MI United States 49009-5316 1903 W. Michigan Avenue
Kalamazoo, MI United States 49008-5241 -
Project Managers:
Dunn, Denise
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Performing Organizations:
Transportation Research Center for Livable Communities
Western Michigan University
Kalamazoo, MI United States 49009-5316 1903 W. Michigan Avenue
Kalamazoo, MI United States 49008-5241 -
Principal Investigators:
Oh, Jun-Seok
Kwigizile, Valerian
Smith, C. Scott
- Start Date: 20150801
- Expected Completion Date: 20160731
- Actual Completion Date: 20160930
- USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers
- Subprogram: Research
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Coordination; Evaluation and assessment; Improvements; Performance measurement; Public transit; Quality of service; Regional transportation; Spatial analysis; State of the practice
- Identifier Terms: General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS)
- Subject Areas: Passenger Transportation; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01590072
- Record Type: Research project
- Source Agency: Transportation Research Center for Livable Communities
- Contract Numbers: DTRT13-G-UTC60, TRC-15-02
- Files: UTC, RIP
- Created Date: Feb 10 2016 9:26AM