Envision Central Texas Presentation

Cellular Mass Transit (CMT)

by

Richard Shultz

Concerned Citizen

March 24, 2008

Would You Like Capital Metro To :

• Double its riders ?

• Cut Travel Time on Long Trips By Half ?

• Reach 100% of Job Sites ?

• Reduce Transfer Time Three Fold ?

• Provide all this with existing revenue sources ?

The Austin Market :

• Average Home-to-Work Distance is 12 Miles.

• Average Bus trip is only 6 miles

• 200,000 workers make under $14 an hour.

• 80% of these workers do not ride the bus.

• 80% of jobs are in low density areas, not in the city center.

• Job growth in the low-skill sectors is moving outward

Existing Service vs. Market Needs

• Too Slow : 22 miles from East Austin to

Lakeline Mall takes 2 hrs 40 min.

• Poor service in low density areas where

80% of jobs are.

• Long Waits: On many routes the wait

between buses is 30+ minutes.

Cellular Mass Transit (CMT) GOALS

Divide service area into 25 Cells with Transit Centers.

Combine express bus & demand responsive circulators to:

• Improve service in low density areas where 80% of jobs are.

• Cut travel time in half

• Cut wait time from 30 minutes to 10

• Double Ridership : 40,000 to 80,000

• Double Average Trip Length : 6 to 12 miles

• Quadruple Passenger Miles

CMT would be faster as most miles would be by express bus. Reduces a 160 minute trip to 80.

Example trip has 3 legs: 2 miles by circulator bus, 18 miles by express bus, and last 2 miles by taxi-van

Transfer from Express to Circulator at the Transit Center :

Riders get off an express bus at the transit center and line up at six circulator route markers. Taxi vans and mini-buses wait to be assigned to routes. Vans are sent to take small groups. Mini-buses take larger groups. Most groups are 12 or less. It is cheaper to take 12 by van than by bus. Wait time would average 5 minutes. The six circulator routes fan out to all parts of the cell.

Poor Service in Low Density Area Existing Service has gaps and 30 minute waits

Dashed Line routes have :1) 30 minutes or more between buses or 2) no service between 9 am and 3 pm. Routes 243,174 & 392 run once an hour between 9 am and 3 pm. Only solid line routes have headways of less than 30 minutes.

Service Gaps : No route within half mile of Parmer and McNeil. Little service along Parmer between McNeil and Lamar. Dessau between Rundberg and Braker gets Rt 485 which runs middle of night only. Note red office buildings and green apartments on Riata Trace that are far from any route. No service along Duval, McNeil or Howard Lane.=

CMT circulators would run every ten minutes.

Blue routes would run every ten minutes in both directions. Green routes would run every ten minutes one way. Several routes would bring riders into each Transit Center (Colored Circles)*. Routes would run along Parmer and Duval where there is currently no service. Offices and apartments along Riata Trace would have a taxi van run by every ten minutes.

More service means more vehicle miles. CMT can provide six times the vehicle miles by using vans, running them on demand, and running faster.

*Blue Circles are TCs connected by commuter rail. Red circles are TCs connected by express bus.

CMT would provide 78 Million Vehicle Miles per Year. 58 Million Miles by van. 78 is six times the current mileage of 13. A van has 12 seats. Bus 22 is a 22 seat bus.

CMT Vehicle Miles Cost LessCMT Express Vehicle Miles would cost less :

Conventional Bus miles : $66/Hour divided by 13 mph = $5.07 per mile

CMT Express Bus Miles : $72/Hour divided by 26 mph = $2.77 per mile

CMT Express Van Miles : $32/Hour divided by 26 mph = $1.23 per mile

Circulator Taxi Van miles would average $1.67 per mile:

Assume the circulator route is six miles. Typical van trip starts out with 7 riders. Drops all riders in the first 4 miles and travels the last two miles empty. Cost is $2 to start and $2 per mile for total of $10.

Taxi vans don’t charge for miles traveled without riders.

Also, if no trip is requested then no taxi is sent and Cap Met pays $0.

But a bus still costs money while traveling empty.

With a bus the cost is $5 per mile for all six miles or total of $30.

Ratio : $10 / $30 = one third.

Mileage costs are lower since most miles are by van. This would provide 480 million passenger miles at a 30% load

factor.

Cost to Provide 78 Million Vehicle Miles per year

• Total cost is $140 million

• Charge 10 cents per passenger mile• With 480 million passenger miles per year, Fares collected

would be $48 million

• Total Subsidy is $140 – ($48 from fares) = $92 million. • Compare to $208 million Cap Metro collects from penny

sales tax. • Current vehicle miles per year is only 13 million

THANK YOU!

QUESTIONS?

CMT4Austin.org

• Slides from here on are to be used to answer questions.

Each Transit Center (TC) would have air conditioning, seats and enclosed gates for each route.

Would provide a comfortable place to wait during 5 minute transfers

Computer screen shows dispatcher how long each rider has waited and how many are waiting at each gate.

Red riders have waited longer than green riders. A lone rider still gets a van if he waits 10 minutes.

With CMT there would be 27 Cells, each with a transit center, connected by Express Bus traveling on special roads. Green roads have queue jumpers and signal control to permit

express bus travel at 30 mph. On orange HOT lanes the express would do 50 mph.

Austin is like many cities. From the LA Times:

Get Me to the Job on Time. For many low-skill workers, commutes [ by bus ] are long and

frustrating as they struggle to get to where the jobs are.

Los Angeles Times: Sunday, June 17, 2001 By DAN GORDON, Special to The Times

Excerpt:

Researchers refer to it as spatial mismatch: In virtually every major U.S. metropolitan area, job growth in the low-skill sectors is moving outward, while the workers most likely to fill these jobs continue to be concentrated in the inner city.

"Jobs are decentralizing but affordable housing is not," said Bruce Katz, director of the Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington.