The Federal Transit Administration defines bus rapid transit (BRT) as a "rapid mode of transportation that can combine the quality of train transit and the flexibility of buses. The following 7 components 'make' BRT: running ways; stations; vehicles; services; route structure; fare collection; and intelligent transportation systems. This article continues to describe BRT concepts and components; traces BRT's evolution; gives its current status; and outlines some of the findings to date of the Transportation Research Board's Transit Cooperative Research Program A-23 project implementation guides for bus rapid transit.

/pdf/bus-rapid-transit-an-overview-5gaxzoi650.pdf

Bus Rapid Transit: An Overview

Problem, research strategy, and findings: How media portray public transit services can affect the way voters and stakeholders think about future transit investments. In this study, I examine social media content about public transit from a large sample of Twitter comments, finding that they reflect more negative sentiments about public transit than do the comments about most other public services, and include more negative material about transit patrons. However, transit agencies may be able to influence the tone of those comments through the way they engage with social media. Transit agencies that respond directly to questions, concerns, and comments of other social media users, as opposed to merely “blasting” announcements, have more positive statements about all aspects of services and fewer slurs directed at patrons, independent of actual service quality. The interaction does not have to be customer oriented. Agencies using Twitter to chat with users about their experiences or new service also have s...

Planning and Social Media: A Case Study of Public Transit and Stigma on Twitter

We study the problem of computing all Pareto-optimal journeys in a dynamic public transit network for multiple criteria, such as arrival time and number of transfers. Existing algorithms consider this as a graph problem and solve it using various graph search algorithms. Unfortunately, this leads to either high query times or suboptimal solutions. We take a different approach. We introduce RAPTOR, our novel round-based public transit router. Unlike previous algorithms, it is not Dijkstra-based, looks at each route such as a bus line in the network at most once per round, and can be made even faster with simple pruning rules and parallelization using multiple cores. Because it does not rely on preprocessing, RAPTOR works in fully dynamic scenarios. Starting from arrival time and number of transfers as criteria, it can be easily extended to handle flexible departure times or arbitrary additional criteria. As practical examples we consider fare zones and reliability of transfers. When run on complex public transportation networks such as London, RAPTOR computes all Pareto-optimal journeys between two random locations an order of magnitude faster than previous approaches, which easily enables interactive applications.

/pdf/round-based-public-transit-routing-5d39yxhrra.pdf

Round-Based Public Transit Routing

In the past few years, numerous mobile applications have made it possible for public transit passengers to find routes and/or learn about the expected arrival time of their transit vehicles. Though these services are widely used, their impact on overall transit ridership remains unclear. The objective of this research is to assess the effect of real-time information provided via web-enabled and mobile devices on public transit ridership. An empirical evaluation is conducted for New York City, which is the setting of a natural experiment in which a real-time bus tracking system was gradually launched on a borough-by-borough basis beginning in 2011. Panel regression techniques are used to evaluate bus ridership over a three year period, while controlling for changes in transit service, fares, local socioeconomic conditions, weather, and other factors. A fixed effects model of average weekday unlinked bus trips per month reveals an increase of approximately 118 trips per route per weekday (median increase of 1.7% of weekday route-level ridership) attributable to providing real-time information. Further refinement of the fixed effects model suggests that this ridership increase may only be occurring on larger routes; specifically, the largest quartile of routes defined by revenue miles of service realized approximately 340 additional trips per route per weekday (median increase of 2.3% per route). Although the increase in weekday route-level ridership may appear modest, on aggregate these increases exert a substantial positive effect on farebox revenue. The implications of this research are critical to decision-makers at the country’s transit operators who face pressure to increase ridership under limited budgets, particularly as they seek to prioritize investments in infrastructure, service offerings, and new technologies.

https://www.utrc2.org/sites/default/files/Candace%20Brakewood.pdf

The impact of real-time information on bus ridership in New York City

The threat of an influenza pandemic has alarmed countries around the globe and given rise to an intense interest in disease mitigation measures. This article reviews what is known about the effectiveness and practical feasibility of a range of actions that might be taken in attempts to lessen the number of cases and deaths resulting from an influenza pandemic. The article also discusses potential adverse second- and third-order effects of mitigation actions that decision makers must take into account. Finally, the article summarizes the authors' judgments of the likely effectiveness and likely adverse consequences of the range of disease mitigation measures and suggests priorities and practical actions to be taken.

http://krhis.kdhe.state.ks.us/olrh/Notices.nsf/bf25ab0f47ba5dd785256499006b15a4/3fe04ade9ec3774086257219005b05ed/$FILE/Disease%20Mitigation%2010-06.pdf

Disease mitigation measures in the control of pandemic influenza.

Dear Members of the Audit Committee and Management: In planning and performing our audits of the consolidated financial statements of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and of the financial statements of the First Mutual Transportation Assurance Transit Operating Authority and the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority (collectively the " MTA ") as of and for the year ended December 31, 2011 (on which we have issued our reports dated May 2, 2012 with the exception of the New York City Transit Authority and Staten Island Rapid Transit Operating Authority.), in accordance with auditing standards generally accepted in the United States of America, we considered the MTA's internal control over financial reporting as a basis for designing audit procedures that are appropriate in the circumstances, but not for the purpose of expressing an opinion on the effectiveness of the MTA's internal control over financial reporting. Accordingly, we do not express an opinion on the effectiveness of the MTA's internal control over financial reporting. Our consideration of internal control over financial reporting was for the limited purpose described in the preceding paragraph and was not designed to identify all deficiencies in internal control over financial reporting. However, in connection with our audits, we have identified, and included in the attached Appendix A, deficiencies related to the MTA's internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2011, that we wish to bring to your attention. We have also issued a separate report to the Audit Committee, dated April 25, 2012, which included a certain matter involving the Staten Island Rapid Transit Operating Authority's internal control over financial reporting that we consider to be a material weakness under standards established by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. The definition of a deficiency is also set forth in the attached Appendix B.Although we have included management's written response to our comments in the attached Appendix A, such responses have not been subjected to the auditing procedures applied in our audits and, accordingly, we do not express an opinion or provide any form of assurance on the appropriateness of the responses or the effectiveness of any corrective actions described therein. This report is intended solely for the information and use of management, the Audit Committee, and others within the organization and is not intended to be, and should not be, used by anyone other than these specified parties.

http://boardarchives.metro.net/BoardBox/Box03/00000664.pdf

Terry Matsumoto

Papers

Metropolitan Transportation Authority