Service access, Ridership, Transit coordination, Scheduling
The state of California, as well as the rest of the United States, is facing growing demand for mobility solutions at the same time supply is growing more constrained. A growing understanding of the mounting challenges among industry leaders, policy makers, and the public has created an environment in which the next few decades may see large investment in transportation infrastructure in response to a wide variety of concerns and challenges. Rail transit is a critical area of focus as the state moves forward with implementing transportation solutions as a result of numerous benefits and efficiencies it offers. Additionally, connections to local bus transit fill an important role in ensuring the any regional rail system is accessible and useable. As a fundamental shift in transit planning and transit infrastructure construction occurs in the coming decades, it will be critical that the implemented policies provide the best solutions for all stakeholders.
With mounting congestion on the nation’s existing transportation infrastructure, many in the transportation field recognize the merits of increasing rail transportation’s prominence among the nation’s modal choices. As California, among other states, moves forward with regional rail initiatives successful planning and implementation of the new infrastructure will be critical to meeting the growing demand for effective transportation solutions, responsibly investing public funding, and creating a lasting legacy of quality multimodal, integrated transit choices to serve the public. Evidence from public agency planning and performance documentation, review of case study data, and experience as an intern for Transportation Management and Design will be used. The study will contribute to literature on transit planning, scheduling, and coordination. The analysis aims to develop a portfolio of industry best practices for coordinating multimodal transportation solutions to provide policy makers, transit planning and operation agencies, and the public opportunities to expand transit service effectiveness.
Coordination and effective management of existing transit infrastructure and service also plays a key role in developing mobility for citizens. Michael Couvrette’s research evaluated the implementation outcomes of current SANDAG multimodal policy. Michael’s study sought to evaluate how effectively and completely the multimodal policy prescriptions contained in the 2030 San Diego Regional Transportation Plan: Pathways of the Future 2030 are currently being implemented in the San Diego region through case studies of two important regional transit centers in Oceanside and Escondido. The 2030 RTP outlines key policy steps toward achieving a larger goal of creating a better regional transit system in the future. Moreover, it was found that the policies of the 2030 RTP and the existing implementation of region’s public transit system begin to generate an effective solution to the region’s growing mobility needs. The case studies accomplish success in handling large numbers of weekday passengers within the regional transit context, establishing a multimodal framework, and beginning to process of full implementation of the 2030 RTP plan. Room for improvement exists in tightening schedule coordination between the different modes, increasing the integration of land use and transit stations, and providing a better, more efficient customer experience within the transit center. This analysis suggests that NCTD is a key player in the implementation team coordinating to realize the 2030 RTP’s vision for the San Diego region’s transportation network. Moreover, while the 2030 RTP proposes a bold, forward looking view of the transportation network of the future in the region, gaps in implementation continue to exist. The two transit centers investigated as case studies show promising progress toward creating effective multimodal coordination proposed in the 2030 RTP, but still have room for improvements as well. This analysis suggests the continued importance of focusing on utilizing transit industry best practices as investment flows toward creating more multimodal solutions for the San Diego region.
A variety of sources of evidence will be used in the study.
Various types of documentation from a variety of sources will be used extensively. Review of planning documents will illustrate past and current transit development doctrines in the industry, and review of future developments will provide an indication of the current trajectory of transit planning. Additionally, planning documents will offer insight into the factors transit planners currently use to determine transit demand, service levels, and future service expansion. Documents which detail the ridership statistics and service structure of transit agencies, such as the data available from The National Transit Database, will provide objective measures of existing service effectiveness. Finally, review of current transit planning literature, including papers from the Transportation Research Board , can expand on current industry practices and provide a analytical framework within which to conduct research and analysis. Weakness with these types of documents may include author/agency bias, poor quality examples of planning, and the tedious process of shifting through public documents.
Selection of key case studies will provide concrete examples of transit coordination. Selecting case studies of rail/bus transit integration that cover a range of time frame and levels of development will help provide context and assist in identifying effective strategies to include with the best practices. Three types of case studies are available: those implemented in the past (established), projects in the early stages of implementation (developing), and projects currently under development or in the early planning stages (planned/future). Examples of established systems include Metrolink (Los Angeles) and Sounder (Seattle). Developing services may include RailRunner (Arizona), NorthStar (Twin Cities), Coaster (San Diego County), and various Amtrak/State government regional rail initiatives. Planned/future case studies include extensions to the BART system (Bay Area) and California’s High Speed Rail program among others. Real world examples will be full of successful policies and also likely to include less successful strategies that may serve as warnings for policies to avoid for future projects. In order to develop a portfolio of best practices a review of past/existing practices, emerging, and cutting edge/innovative practices must be review, case studies play an important role in this task. Possible weaknesses include selectivity, data reliability/accessibility, and difficulty isolating independent variables across a diverse set of cases.
This area of investigation combines two distinct spatial levels. On the macro level the larger region must be considered on the basis of patterns of travel and the regional rail system as a whole among a variety of other factors. Each point of rail and bus transit coordination will require a micro level investigation to determine effectiveness within the local context. These different levels of analysis should allow for evaluation of differences and similarities between varying transit solutions in different geographic areas. Critical elements include bus transit alignments, rail infrastructure routing, station locations, and proximity to transit demand (housing, commerce, employment, income, age).
Copyright © 2009 USP Student Research all rights reserved
Site Designed By Digital Mud Studio