TCRP Report 6 - Transportation Research...

T R A N S I T C O O P E R A T I V E R E S E A R C H P R O G R A M

SPONSORED BY

The Federal Transit Administration

TCRP Report 6

Users' Manual for AssessingService-Delivery Systems

for Rural Passenger Transportation

Transportation Research BoardNational Research Council

TCRP OVERSIGHT AND PROJECTSELECTION COMMITTEECHAIRROD J. DIRIDONInt'l Institute for Surface Transportation Policy

StudyMEMBERSSHARON D. BANKSAC TransitLEE BARNESBarwood, Inc.GERALD L. BLAIRIndiana County Transit AuthorityMICHAEL BOLTONCapital MetroSHIRLEY A. DELIBERONew Jersey Transit CorporationSANDRA DRAGGOOCATALOUIS J. GAMBACCINISEPTADELON HAMPTONDelon Hampton & AssociatesRICHARD R. KELLYPort Authority Trans-Hudson Corp.ALAN F. KIEPPERNew York City Transit AuthorityEDWARD N. KRAVITZThe Flxible CorporationPAUL LARROUSSEMadison Metro Transit SystemROBERT G. LINGWOODBC TransitGORDON J. LINTONFTAWILLIAM W. MILLARPort Authority of Allegheny CountyMIKE MOBEYIsabella County Transportation Comm.DON S. MONROEPierce TransitPATRICIA S. NETTLESHIPThe Nettleship Group, Inc.ROBERT E. PAASWELLThe City College of New YorkJAMES P. REICHERTReichert Management ServicesLAWRENCE G. REUTERWMATAMICHAEL S. TOWNESPeninsula Transportation Dist. Comm.FRANK J. WILSONNew Jersey DOTEDWARD WYTKINDAFL-CIOEX OFFICIO MEMBERSJACK R. GILSTRAPAPTARODNEY E. SLATERFHWAFRANCIS B. FRANCOISAASHTOROBERT E. SKINNER, JR.TRBTDC EXECUTIVE DIRECTORFRANK J. CIHAKAPTASECRETARYROBERT J. REILLYTRB

TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH BOARD EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 1995

OFFICERS

Chair: Lillian C. Borrone, Director, Port Commerce, The Port Authority of New York and New JerseyVice Chair: James W. VAN Loben Sels, Director, California Department of TransportationExecutive Director: Robert E. Skinner, Jr., Transportation Research Board

MEMBERS

EDWARD H. ARNOLD, Chair and President, Arnold Industries, Lebanon, PASHARON D. BANKS, General Manager, AC Transit, Oakland, CABRIAN J. L. BERRY, Lloyd Viel Berkner Regental Professor & Chair, Bruton Center for Development Studies,The University of Texas at DallasDWIGHT M. BOWER, Director, Idaho Department of TransportationJOHN E. BREEN, The Nasser I. Al-Rashid Chair in Civil Engineering, The University of Texas at AustinWILLIAM F. BUNDY, Director, Rhode Island Department of TransportationDAVID BURWELL, President, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, Washington, DCA. RAY CHAMBERLAIN, Vice President, Freight Policy, American Trucking Associations, Inc., Alexandria,VA (Past Chair, 1993)RAY W. CLOUGH, Nishkian Professor of Structural Engineering, Emeritus, University of California, BerkeleyJAMES C. DELONG, Director of Aviation, Denver International Airport, Denver, COJAMES N. DENN, Commissioner, Minnesota Department of TransportationDENNIS J. FITZGERALD, Executive Director, Capital District Transportation Authority, Albany, NYJAMES A. HAGEN, Chair of the Board, Conrail Inc., Philadelphia, PADELON HAMPTON, Chair & CEO, Delon Hampton & Associates, Washington, DCLESTER A. HOEL, Hamilton Professor, Civil Engineering, University of VirginiaDON C. KELLY, Secretary, Kentucky Transportation CabinetROBERT KOCHANOWSKI, Executive Director, Southwestern Pennsylvania Regional Planning CommissionJAMES L. LAMMIE, President & CEO, Parsons Brinckerhoff, Inc., New York, NYCHARLES P. O'LEARY, JR., Commissioner, New Hampshire Department of TransportationJUDE W. P. PATIN, Secretary, Louisiana Department of Transportation and DevelopmentCRAIG E. PHILIP, President, Ingram Barge Co., Nashville, TNDARREL RENSINK, Director, Iowa Department of TransportationJOSEPH M. SUSSMAN, JR East Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering, MITMARTIN WACHS, Director, Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Los AngelesDAVID N. WORMLEY, Dean of Engineering, Pennsylvania State UniversityHOWARD YERUSALIM, Vice President, KCI Technologies, Inc., Hunt Valley, MD

EX OFFICIO MEMBERS

MIKE ACOTT, President, National Asphalt Pavement AssociationROY A. ALLEN, Vice President, Research and Test Department, Association of American RailroadsANDREW H. CARD, JR., President and CEO, American Automobile Manufacturers AssociationTHOMAS J. DONOHUE, President and CEO, American Trucking AssociationsFRANCIS B. FRANCOIS, Executive Director, American Association of State Highway and TransportationOfficialsJACK R. GILSTRAP, Executive Vice President, American Public Transit AssociationALBERT J. HERBERGER, Maritime Administrator, U.S. Department of TransportationDAVID R. HINSON, Federal Aviation Administrator, U.S. Department of TransportationT. R. LAKSHMANAN, Director, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, U.S. Department of TransportationGORDON J. LINTON, Federal Transit Administrator, U.S. Department of TransportationRICARDO MARTINEZ, National Highway Traffic Safety Administrator, U.S. Department of TransportationJOLENE M. MOLITORIS, Federal Railroad Administrator, U.S. Department of TransportationDHARMENDRA K. SHARMA, Research and Special Programs Administrator, U.S. Department ofTransportationRODNEY E. SLATER, Federal Highway Administrator, U.S. Department of TransportationARTHUR E. WILLIAMS, Chief of Engineers and Commander, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

TRANSIT COOPERATIVE RESEARCH PROGRAM

Transportation Research Board Executive Committee Subcommittee for TCRPLILLIAN C. BORRONE, The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (Chair)SHARON D. BANKS, AC TransitLESTER A. HOEL, University of VirginiaGORDON J. LINTON, U.S. Department of TransportationROBERT E. SKINNER, JR., Transportation Research BoardJOSEPH M. SUSSMAN, Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyJAMES W. VAN LOBEN SELS, California Department of Transportation

T R A N S I T C O O P E R A T I V E R E S E A R C H P R O G R A M

Report 6

Users' Manual for AssessingService-Delivery Systems

for Rural Passenger Transportation

JON E. BURKHARDT, BETH HAMBYand

ADAM T. McGAVOCKEcosometrics, Incorporated

Bethesda, MDin association with

ATE Management & Service Company, Inc.Arlington, VA

andUrbitran Associates, Inc.

New York, NY

Subject Area

Public Transit

Research Sponsored by the Federal Transit Administration inCooperation with the Transit Development Corporation

T R A N S P O R T A T I O N R E S E A R C H B O A R DNATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL

NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESSWashington, D.C. 1995

TRANSIT COOPERATIVE RESEARCH PROGRAM

The nation's growth and the need to meet mobility, environmental,and energy objectives place demands on public transit systems.Current systems, some of which are old and in need of upgrading,must expand service area, increase service frequency, and improveefficiency to serve these demands. Research is necessary to solveoperating problems, to adapt appropriate new technologies from otherindustries, and to introduce innovations into the transit industry. TheTransit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) serves as one of theprincipal means by which the transit industry can develop innovativenear-term solutions to meet demands placed on it.

The need for TCRP was originally identified in TRB SpecialReport 213—Research for Public Transit: New Directions, publishedin 1987 and based on a study sponsored by the Urban MassTransportation Administration—now the Federal TransitAdministration (FTA). A report by the American Public TransitAssociation (APTA), Transportation 2000, also recognized the needfor local, problem-solving research. TCRP, modeled after thelongstanding and successful National Cooperative Highway ResearchProgram, undertakes research and other technical activities inresponse to the needs of transit service providers. The scope of TCRPincludes a variety of transit research fields including planning,service configuration, equipment, facilities, operations, humanresources, maintenance, policy, and administrative practices.

TCRP was established under FTA sponsorship in July 1992.Proposed by the U.S. Department of Transportation, TCRP wasauthorized as part of the Intermodal Surface TransportationEfficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA). On May 13, 1992, a memorandumagreement outlining TCRP operating procedures was executed by thethree cooperating organizations: FTA, the National Academy ofSciences, acting through the Transportation Research Board (TRB),and the Transit Development Corporation, Inc. (TDC), a nonprofiteducational and research organization established by APTA. TDC isresponsible for forming the independent governing board, designatedas the TCRP Oversight and Project Selection (TOPS) Committee.

Research problem statements for TCRP are solicited periodicallybut may be submitted to TRB by anyone at any time. It is theresponsibility of the TOPS Committee to formulate the researchprogram by identifying the highest priority projects. As part of theevaluation, the TOPS Committee defines funding levels and expectedproducts.

Once selected, each project is assigned to an expert panel,appointed by the Transportation Research Board. The panels prepareproject statements (requests for proposals), select contractors, andprovide technical guidance and counsel throughout the life of theproject. The process for developing research problem statements andselecting research agencies has been used by TRB in managingcooperative research programs since 1962. As in other TRBactivities, TCRP project panels serve voluntarily withoutcompensation.

Because research cannot have the desired impact if products fail toreach the intended audience, special emphasis is placed ondisseminating TCRP results to the intended endusers of the research:transit agencies, service providers, and suppliers. TRB provides aseries of research reports, syntheses of transit practice, and othersupporting material developed by TCRP research. APTA will arrangefor workshops, training aids, field visits, and other activities to ensurethat results are implemented by urban and rural transit industrypractitioners.

The TCRP provides a forum where transit agencies cancooperatively address common operational problems. The TCRPresults support and complement other ongoing transit research andtraining programs.

TCRP REPORT 6

Project A-2 FY '92ISSN 1073-4872ISBN 0-309-05709-4Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 95-62098

Price $49.00

NOTICEThe project that is the subject of this report was a part of the TransitCooperative Research Program conducted by the Transportation ResearchBoard with the approval of the Governing Board of the National ResearchCouncil. Such approval reflects the Governing Board's judgment that theproject concerned is appropriate with respect to both the purposes andresources of the National Research Council.

The members of the technical advisory panel selected to monitor thisproject and to review this report were chosen for recognized scholarlycompetence and with due consideration for the balance of disciplinesappropriate to the project. The opinions and conclusions expressed or impliedare those of the research agency that performed the research, and while theyhave been accepted as appropriate by the technical panel, they are notnecessarily those of the Transportation Research Board, the TransitDevelopment Corporation, the National Research Council, or the FederalTransit Administration of the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Each report is reviewed and accepted for publication by the technical panelaccording to procedures established and monitored by the TransportationResearch Board Executive Committee and the Governing Board of theNational Research Council.

Special Notice

The Transportation Research Board, the Transit DevelopmentCorporation, the National Research Council, and the Federal TransitAdministration (sponsor of the Transit Cooperative Research Program) donot endorse products or manufacturers. Trade or manufacturers' namesappear herein solely because they are considered essential to the clarityand completeness of the project reporting.

Published reports of the

TRANSIT COOPERATIVE RESEARCH PROGRAMare available from:

Transportation Research BoardNational Research Council2101 Constitution Avenue, N.W.Washington, D.C. 20418

Printed in the United States of America

FOREWORDBy Staff

Transportation ResearchBoard

This manual will be of interest to agencies engaged in planning, operating, orfunding passenger transportation services in rural areas. The manual will assist indesigning public transportation services in communities where no systems now exist orin restructuring and improving existing rural transportation. The manual providesdetailed methods that allow local planners and operators to identify and analyzetransportation services in rural communities.

Under TCRP Project A-2, Service-Delivery Systems for Rural PublicTransportation, research was undertaken by a team headed by Ecosometrics, Inc. topresent an overall plan for conceptualizing alternative transportation systems for ruralpassenger services. To achieve the project objective, the researchers conducted acomprehensive literature review of current practices. A survey of nearly 200 randomlyselected rural public transportation operators, representing all rural publictransportation systems in the country, was conducted. The survey collected detailedinformation on services consumed, services provided, operating and capital costs,sources of funds, and other relevant information. A substantial portion of thisinformation is not available from any other data source.

This manual of recommended methods was developed using these data. Themanual includes methods to decide which types and what levels of service to provideand highlights case studies of a variety of successful rural transit operations.Information for contacting specific operators is also provided. Thus, the manual willassist planners and operators in designing and evaluating a wide range of ruralpassenger transportation service-delivery systems.

Three other products were developed under this project; they are as follows:

• The Rural Transportation Services (RTS) Computer Program. This is asoftware package that allows the user to identify the characteristics of existingrural transportation systems and the communities that they serve. Informationsuch as operating and performance statistics and financial resources isprovided. Users of the program are able to specify their own peer groups,obtain information about systems in those groups, and obtain information forcontacting the transit operators they have identified.

• Users' Manual for the Rural Transportation Services Computer Program. Thismanual describes how to install and operate the RTS computer program.

• Service-Delivery Systems for Rural Passenger Transportation; Final Report.This report provides a description of some of the procedures used and thefactors investigated in developing the manual and computer program.Although this report is designed for persons interested in the research process,persons interested in the characteristics and performance of ruraltransportation systems are encouraged to obtain copies of all of the productsof this contract.

Both the computer program and the users' manual for the computer program areavailable for downloading in the Rural Transportation Assistance Program (RTAP)TAP-IN Bulletin Boards maintained by the Community Transportation Associationof America at 202/628-2537. The final report is available on loan through the TCRP,2101 Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC 20418.

CONTENTS 1 CHAPTER 1 Rural Passenger Transportation ServicesWhy We Need Rural Passenger Services, 3Rural Services Now Available, 4Objectives of This Manual, 5The Companion Product, 7What Do the Numbers Mean, Anyway?, 8A Road Map for Our Journey, 9

11 CHAPTER 2 Potential Service OptionsThe Components of Transportation Service Options and Strategies, 13Real-World Examples of Service Types, 16An Overall Framework of Service Options, 19Examples of Innovative Service Designs, 24Summary, 27

29 CHAPTER 3 Which Service Type? How to DecideThe First Steps in Service Decisions, 31Advantages and Disadvantages of Various Service Types, 32Taking Advantage of Community Characteristics, 35Considerations in Tailoring Services to Particular Communities, 37Overall Perspectives on Service Options, 39How Much Service Should You Offer?, 40How Much Service Can You Afford?, 42Summary, 43

45 CHAPTER 4 Case Studies of High-Performance SystemsThe Case Studies, 47Alma, Michigan: Dial-a-Ride Transportation, 48Bonifay, Florida: Tri-County Community Council, Incorporated, 52Carroll, Iowa: Western Iowa Transit System, 56Laredo (Webb County), Texas: El Aguila, 61Venango County, Pennsylvania, and Its Transportation System, 66High Performance One-Bus Systems, 69Overall Lessons, 76

79 CHAPTER 5 Numbers, Numbers, Numbers: Results from Other CommunitiesWhich Numbers to Use, 81Where to Get Your Own Numbers, 85What You Can Do with the Numbers, 87Where Our Numbers Come From, 89Overall Rural Transportation Systems Characteristics, 90Characteristics of Different Service Types, 93Performance Measures for the Most Cost-Effective Systems, 100

113 CHAPTER 6 Putting It All TogetherThe Service Design/Assessment Process, 115Other Resources, 116Summary, 117

119 GLOSSARY

139 ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

A1-A2 APPENDIX A The Rural Transportation Services Computer ProgramB1-B2 APPENDIX B List of Project Panel Members and Reviewers from Local

Transportation OperationsC1-C9 APPENDIX C The TCRP Rural Transportation Database

D1-D38 APPENDIX D National Summary Statistics for Section 18 Funded RuralTransportation Systems

E1-E22 APPENDIX E Contact Information for Section 18 Operators

http://nationalacademies.org/trb/publications/tcrp/tcrp_rpt_06-b.pdf

http://nationalacademies.org/trb/publications/tcrp/tcrp_rpt_06-c.pdf

http://nationalacademies.org/trb/publications/tcrp/tcrp_rpt_06-d.pdf

http://nationalacademies.org/trb/publications/tcrp/tcrp_rpt_06-e.pdf

http://nationalacademies.org/trb/publications/tcrp/tcrp_rpt_06-f.pdf

http://nationalacademies.org/trb/publications/tcrp/tcrp_rpt_06-g.pdf

COOPERATIVE RESEARCH PROGRAMS STAFFROBERT J. REILLY, Director, Cooperative Research ProgramsSTEPHEN J. ANDRLE, Manager, Transit Cooperative Research ProgramSTEPHANIE NELLONS ROBINSON, Senior Program OfficerEILEEN P. DELANEY, EditorKAMI CABRAL, Assistant Editor

PROJECT PANEL A-2JAMES H. MILLER, Mid-Atlantic Universities Transportation Center, University Park, PA (Chair)DAVID D. KNIGHT, Sonoma County Transit, Santa Rosa, CAJEROME NOBLE, South Carolina Department of Highways and Public TransportationDIANE H. RATCLIFF, Mass Transit Administration, Baltimore, MDVICKIE SHAFFER, Tri-State Transit Authority, Huntington, WVPAT WEAVER, Kansas University Transportation CenterTOM WHITNEY, South Carolina State UniversityLINDA WILSON, JAUNT Inc., Charlottesville, VAROGER TATE, FTA Liaison RepresentativePETER L. SHAW, TRB Liaison Representative

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThe research that produced this manual was performed

under TCRP Project A-2 by Ecosometrics, Incorporatedand its subcontractors, ATE Management and ServiceCompany, Inc., and Urbitran Associates, Inc.

Jon E. Burkhardt, Vice President of Ecosometrics,Incorporated, was this project's Principal Investigator.He was assisted by Robert J. Hayes, Beth Hamby, AdamT. McGavock, Mark Bower, Fred Fravel, andLinda L. Ryden of Ecosometrics; Andrew J. Mundew andMaxine Marshall of ATE; and Karen Alexander andDavid Sampson of Urbitran. The authors of thespecificreports and other products of this project are listedwith those products. Mr. Burkhardt was the primaryauthor and editor of this manual. Beth Hamby wrotepart of Chapter 2 plus the Glossary and theAnnotated Bibliography and also created the graphics for

this report. Karen Alexander, Andy Mundew, and FredFravel wrote initial drafts of the case studies. Statisticaltables were prepared by Adam McGavock, and the reportwas produced by Karen Burkhardt, Linda Ryden, PatGaskins, and Mark Bower.

We would like to thank many people for substantialcontributions to this report. Our TCRP Project Officer,Stephanie N. Robinson, deserves many thanks for herdirection, support, and encouragement throughout theproject. We are grateful for the guidance and assistanceprovided by the members of our Project Panel and thosetransportation providers and planners who reviewed ourworks in progress; these persons are listed in Appendix B.We sincerely appreciate the time and consideration givento us by many rural transportation operators, particularlythose visited by the research team.

Chapter 1:Rural PassengerTransportation Services

Rural PassengerTransportation Services

Why We Need RuralPassenger Services

Rural Services NowAvailable

Objectives of ThisManual

The CompanionProduct

What Do theNumbers Mean,Anyway?

A Road Map for OurJourney

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Service-Delivery Systems for Rural Passenger Transportation 3

WHY WE NEEDRURALPASSENGERSERVICES

Many rural counties now have excellent all-weather road systems, butsome rural residents still remain isolated from the mainstream ofmodern American society because of their inability to travel. Folks whodon't own or drive their own cars face particularly difficult situationsbecause many ruralcommunities lack good public orprivate transportationalternatives to the automobile.Other folks can't pay the pricefor transportation services whenthey are available. Long traveldistances required to reacheveryday destinationscompound the difficulties forpeople with travel problems who live in the rural countryside and smallertowns. In many rural areas, the availability of an automobile is animportant indicator of physical mobility, and the lack of an auto is aproxy measure of isolation.

Communities with large numbers of older persons, families withlimited incomes, school-age children, or one-car families often havesubstantial unmet transportation needs. Compared to the mobilesegment of those in rural areas who are able to drive and can afford tomaintain reliable private automobiles, those who do not have access toan auto or are not able to drive are at a considerable disadvantage. Thesocial and economic isolation fostered by distances between peopleand communities is compounded by the expense of traveling. Ruralresidents without mobility are often unaware of available measures toimprove their living conditions or unable to take advantage of those theyknow about. Their lack of mobility substantially decreases theiropportunity to participate in the activities and transactions characteristicof modern society. This lack of opportunity in turn maintains, if notactually produces, many of the cultural and economic problems of ruralregions. Thus, the lack of effective transportation services is one of themajor problems that hinders the full development of rural Americatoday.

The numbers of rural public transportation systems are growing. Aswe will show later in this manual, the most effective rural transit systemsare those that serve all of their residents, not just members of someparticular group. But many rural areas still have no passengertransportation service, and some rural transit operations need tobecome more effective than they are now.

The following indicators illustrate the restricted public transportationopportunities of many rural areas:

• Of the smallest rural communities, those with 2,500 persons orless,— half of them have no public transportation at all: no taxi,

intercity bus, specialized transit, or public transit service.

RURAL SERVICESNOW AVAILABLE

— Ninety percent of them do not have taxi service; 90percent do not have intercity bus service; almost 90percent do not have specialized transit services.

• Of the next largest rural communities, i.e., those places withpopulations of between 2,500 and 10,000 persons,— one-sixth of them do not have any public transportation

services whatsoever,— one-fifth of them do not have taxi services,— three-fifths of them do not have intercity bus services, and— two-thirds of them do not have specialized transit services.

As can be seen, very small communities are not likely to provide thepatronage to support, nor the tax base to subsidize, many of the transitservices available in larger communities.

There are almost 1,200 rural public transportation systems in theUnited States now funded through the Federal Transit Administration's(FTA) Section 18 Public Transportation for Nonurbanized AreasProgram. Federal funding has not dramatically increased since theprogram's inception, but state governments have increased theirfunding considerably. Transportation projects funded through FTA'sSection 16 program for meeting the special needs of the elderly anddisabled also serve many rural areas.

While publicly sponsored rural passenger transportation hasbecome an established service in some rural areas in the United Statesover the past 20 years, anddespite a greater serviceavailability in many areasnow, the need to makethese services efficient andeffective is even greaterthan before due to seriousconstraints on publicservice budgets. Designingservice-delivery systemsthat are closely tailored tothe needs and resources oftheir specific local communities is a key means of increasing efficiencyand effectiveness.

The service models and planning methodologies that have beendeveloped for transportation systems in urban areas do not apply torural areas. The differences between successful rural and small urbantransportation systems and their counterparts in large urban areas areenormous. What works well in large urban areas will not work well inrural or small urban areas because of:

• the dispersion of origins and destinations,

• the overall low density of demand,


OBJECTIVES OFTHIS MANUAL

• the different characteristics of the transportation disadvantaged(or transit dependent),

• the nature of the trips demanded, and

• the lifestyles and characteristics of rural and small-urbanresidents.

Proportionally, rural areas still contain more persons who are aged,disabled, and low income than urban areas.

Despite the obvious needs, no detailed methodology has ever beenproduced to assess service-delivery systems for rural passengertransportation systems. This manual fills that void.

This manual is one of two products designed to help you to design,evaluate, and improve rural transportation services for your community.Funded through the Transit Cooperative Research Program, thismanual provides information about rural transportation service options,how often they are being used and where, and their performance resultsin those communities. At themoment, all systems included inthe data files are those fundedthrough the Section 18 programof the U. S. Department ofTransportation, Federal TransitAdministration. (We know thatthere are other goodtransportation services nowoperating in rural communities,and hope that a future version ofthese products will includesystems funded through FTA'sSection 16 program plusoperations funded through thevarious agencies of the U. S.Department of Health andHuman Services, plus otherspecialized services.) Casestudies of exemplary systemsare included, and theappendices include statistics onmost of the Section 18-funded rural transit systems now operating in theUnited States, with comparisons by service types and by region.Contact information for 1,100 systems is also included.

The other product is the Rural Transportation Services computerprogram, an easy to use database program that enables you to viewinformation of interest to you about rural public transportation servicesthat are currently operating in the United States. The program,described in Appendix A, provides you with detailed information aboutthe public transportation services that now operate in rural communitiesand about those communities.

Background

These products are intended as tools to help you

1) design public transportation services in rural communitieswhere none now exist, and

2) restructure and improve rural public transportation serviceswhere they do exist.

You can compare communities to each other and their transportationservices to each other, and YOU get to choose how to make thecomparisons. You'll see which services are most efficient in whichtypes of communities and, in the end, you'll get the names, phonenumbers, and addresses of the folks who run these systems so you cancontact them directly and find out how their experiences can help you.

While each of these products is designed so that it may be usedalone, you will probably get the greatest benefit from using this manualand the companion computer program together. Persons without thenecessary computer hardware or software may wish to enlist theassistance of regional or state transportation planners for the computeroperations.

If service planning was a truly easy task, we wouldn't need to spendlots of time, energy, and money doing it. While these products will makeyour job easier and your choices more enlightened, you will still need toput real work into creating plans, testing and evaluating them, revisingthem, presenting them to appropriate community leaders, and revisingthem again based on community inputs and operating experiences. Thismanual, and the companion computer program, were designed to giveyou as much information as possible about what other folks are doing inother rural communities and with what results. That kind of informationwill be a powerful tool to aid your efforts to create the besttransportation service for your own community. Like any other tool, themore you use it, the better feeling you will have for its benefits and themore benefits you will obtain.

Let's get started.

In late 1992, the Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP)announced a research project statement entitled "Service DeliverySystems for Rural Passenger Transportation." The problemstatement in that announcement states, in part,

"...it is difficult for rural transportation providers and planners todesign and evaluate an effective and cost-efficient service-deliverysystem....no generally accepted set of methodologies or guidelinesare available to assist rural transportation providers and planners.

"Because of the complexities in providing transit service in ruralareas, transportation providers and planners must have


THE COMPANIONPRODUCT

credible methodologies and guidelines for designing and evaluatingdelivery systems for existing, expanded, and reduced rural transitservices. These tools must be in a format adaptable for use by ruraltransportation providers and planners under a wide range of conditions,which include terrain and geographic constraints; demographic andsocioeconomic characteristics; and economic and market forces...

"The objective of this research project is to develop a manual ofrecommended methodologies for use by transportation providers andplanners in designing and evaluating a wide range of rural passenger-transportation service delivery systems...."

TCRP authorized Ecosometrics, Incorporated and itssubcontractors, ATE Management and Service Company, Inc. andUrbitran Associates, Inc., to begin work on this project in May 1993. Thework plan for this project included a mail survey of rural transitoperations funded by FTA's Section 18 program (200 of whom provideddetailed information for this project), visits to selected rural transportationoperations, and reviews by a TCRP Project Panel and by ruraltransportation providers and planners of the materials produced. (SeeAppendix B.)

The companion product to this manual, the Rural TransportationServices computer program, is designed to be an advanced softwaretool that will be extremely useful to transportation system operators,planners, and analysts. Its users will need no programming skillswhatsoever to be able to access the information in this program aboutcommunities and the rural public transportation systems that now exist inthem.

This program is designed toallow you to review detailedinformation about localities and thepublic transportation systems thathave been created to serve therural portions of those localities.You may begin using the programby starting with either community ortransportation system information.Information about the localities isfrom U. S. Census Bureau datatapes for the 1990 Census. The rural transportation operators in thisdata file are those

WHAT DO THENUMBERS MEAN,ANYWAY?

funded by the U. S. Department of Transportation through the FederalTransit Administration's Section 18 program, "Formula Grant Programfor Areas other than Urbanized Areas." The database in the RuralTransportation Services computer program provides general informationon 1,100 of the 1,200 Section 18 systems now operating in the UnitedStates, plus detailed information on 200 of those systems.

More information on the computer program is provided in AppendixA.

What good is all this information? What can it do to help you?

We think that the informationavailable through this manual andthe Rural Transportation Servicescomputer program can provide greatbenefits to the planners andoperators of rural transportationsystems. Perhaps the greatest valueis that you can use the informationprovided by those who are nowoperating rural transit systems toprovide you with "benchmarks" thatyou can use to assess your system'scharacteristics and performanceagainst those of other systems. Seen in this light, this manual and thecomputer program are two of many tools you should have to answersome very important questions: "How am I doing?" "Am I doing a goodjob or am I in trouble?" "What do I do next?" Thus, the data available toyou through these two sources can provide lots of support in yourmonitoring and evaluation activities, whether you do these activities foryour own internal management, for reports to your funding sources, orreports to your Board of Directors.

Similarly, for persons interested in starting rural transportationservices where none now exist, these data can tell you what solutionsothers have used and with what results. You can see what kinds ofservices are being used in areas that are similar to yours, what theycost, and how many persons they serve.

Many persons in rural areas have a healthy skepticism about "fancynumbers" and a high regard for common sense solutions. We believe inthose virtues, too, and we're not suggesting that they be abandoned justfor the release of new service data. This manual and the computerprogram tell you what other folks say that they are doing: for a variety ofreasons, what they do may not quite apply in your community. Thenagain, what they say that they are doing may not have been reported inquite the fashion we would have liked. Indeed, there are some figuresthat look to be "too good to be true" among the reports that are includedin the our database. But one of


A ROAD MAP FOROUR JOURNEY

the beauties of this data file is that it gives you the names and phonenumbers of folks to contact when you see information that interestsyou.

The data reported here were gathered in 1994, which means thatsome systems were reporting the results of their fiscal year ending June30, 1993. Especially when dealing with cost figures, it is important torealize that the passage of time may have affected the reliability of priorreports.

You may want to design a service-delivery pattern for your ruralcommunity, which no one else has ever tried, or you may want to be thebest of a certain type of service provider. In either case, the informationin these files tells you what other rural transportation providers report fortheir systems, and that information should be of fundamentalimportance to your efforts to plan new transportation services orimprove existing ones.

Where do we go from here? We suggest that you consider thefollowing sequence of steps as your process or methodology forplanning or assessing rural transportation services:

1. Review the service typesthat are available.

2. Establish local goals,objectives, and needsbased on yourcommunity and itsprofile.

3. Select and tailor servicesto reflect communityneeds.

4. Estimate the volume ofservice anticipated.

5. Evaluate availableresources and forecastfunding and servicecosts.

6. Refer to other sourcesfor help in refining the service design.

First, we'll explore some basic service definitions in Chapter 2 andlook at some examples. Chapter 3 will examine the issues to beconsidered when deciding which type of service to select. We'll look atlocal goals and objectives, the advantages and disadvantages ofvarious service types, taking advantage of community characteristics,how much service to offer, how much service you can afford, andspecial considerations about service types and combinations of types.

Chapter 4 looks at examples of rural transit operations that aresuccessfully tailored to local circumstances and conditions. Chapter 5presents in-depth numerical details of the various service types (andthat information is expanded further in the Appendices). The lastchapter presents a quick list of sources of assistance in planning andevaluating rural transportation systems.

Our journey might be compared to the process of peeling an onion.We will start with more general information first, and will then proceed todeeper levels and pick up more of the details. Some readers may findenough information in the first three or four chapters, which present abasic overview of service types and some examples. Others will want todelve into the detailed statistical information about the relativeperformance levels of the different service types that is provided inChapter 5 and the Appendices. For persons interested in customizedperspectives of how the service types fit into communities of variouscharacteristics, we recommend that you use the Rural TransportationServices computer program to generate unique peer comparisons.

The bad news is that neither assessing existing rural service-delivery systems nor planning new ones is a cookbook operation. Thereis no simple abstract formula nor one great planning model that willcreate a uniquely best answer regarding transportation services for aparticular rural community. The good news is that there are at leastseveral good answers for each community, and these can be tailored tothe specific goals and constraints of the community. Furthermore, somesolutions are demonstrably better than others, and some aredemonstrably worse. So although we can't offer simple or uniqueanswers, this manual will improve your ability to design and operaterural transportation services that are appropriate for your particularlocality.

Chapter 2:Potential ServiceOptions

Rural PassengerTransportation Services

The Components ofTransportationService Options andStrategies

Real-WorldExamples of ServiceTypes

An OverallFramework ofService Options

Examples ofInnovative ServiceDesigns

Summary


THE COMPONENTSOFTRANSPORTATIONSERVICE OPTIONSAND STRATEGIES

Where: The SpatialDimensions ofTransportationServices

There are many possible transportation service options for ruralcommunities. As some options will be more appropriate in particularcommunities than other options, it is important that you understand thefull range of service types that are available.

While transportation services may be characterized by a largenumber of dimensions (ownership, clientele, operational features,vehicles, administration, means of access, and many others), when weare talking about service strategies, there is just one extremelyimportant question: How do potential passengers access thetransportation services?

It's been said that the three major operational strategies that bringthe transit vehicle to the customer are 1)routing, 2) scheduling, and 3) stop location. (Areally good reference on these issues isNCHRP Report 209, "Market OpportunityAnalysis for Short-Range Public TransportationPlanning," by Frederick J. Wegmann andothers, published by the TransportationResearch Board in 1979. The routing andscheduling definitions listed below are from thisreference.) Routing and scheduling may bethought of as the where and when of servicepatterns or their spatial and temporaldimensions. Stop location is another kind of descriptor of geographic orspatial dimensions.

Routing, the spatial path of the vehicles, directly determines theaccessibility of the transit system to potential customer and the degreeto which the desired destinations are serviced. If routing alone isconsidered, the closer the routing corresponds to the local pattern oforigins and destinations, the more accessible the service will be. Basicrouting strategies are

1. Fixed-Route Service. The transit vehicle travels apreestablished route. Passengers are picked up or dropped offat predesignated locations along the route.

2. Route-Deviation Service. A vehicle travels a basic fixed-route, picking up or dropping off passengers anywhere alongthe route. On request, and, perhaps, with additional charge, thevehicle will deviate a few blocks from the fixed-route to pick upor deliver a passenger.

3. Point-Deviation Service. A vehicle stops at specifiedcheckpoints (shopping centers, industrial parks, etc.) atspecified times, but travels a flexible route between thesepoints to serve specific customer requests for doorstep pickupor delivery.

4. Many-to-Few Service.Origin points may beanywhere in a definedservice area, butdestinations are limitedto a few activitycenters. Conversely,for a return trip, originsare limited whereasdestinations areareawide. The vehicle travelsa flexible route betweenorigin and destination points to serve specific customerrequests.

5. Many-to-ManyService. Service isprovided to all originsand destinations withina defined service area.Service is not providedoutside the servicearea. The vehicletravels a flexible routebetween the origin anddestination points toserve specific customerrequests for doorsteppickup and delivery.

Many-to-Few Service

Many-to-Many Service


When: TheTemporalDimensions ofTransportationServices

Looking at these spatial service options as a spectrum, it could besaid that they range, starting from fixed-route services, from servicesspecified by the transportation provider to those specified by thetransportation consumer, or from relatively fixed services with fewchoices to relatively flexible services with many choices (from theconsumer's point of view).

Scheduling defines the times at which transit vehicles will beavailable to specific customers for transportation service. Basicscheduling strategies are

1. Fixed-Schedule. Customers board a vehicle at specifiedtimes. The schedule is established by the transportationagency.

2. Flexible Fixed-Schedule. Customersboard a vehicle at specified timesestablished in advance by thecustomers. Schedule changes arepermitted with short notice to reflectchanging circumstances.

3. Advance Request. Service isrequested for a single trip to occur at aspecific time, perhaps 24 to 48 hoursafter the request. The customer hascontrol of the pickup time within aspecified arrival window with the advance request option, butmust know complete trip details in advance. (As this is notalways possible, this requirement constrains theresponsiveness of the service.)

4. Immediate Request. Service is requested through a centralcontrol or dispatcher for a single trip to be made as soon aspossible. Requests are generally made by telephone. Theresponsiveness of this option is affected by the availability of atelephone, the availability of a vehicle to make the trip, and theavailability of space in the vehicle. This is the most responsiveservice possible except for the personal automobile.

Looking at these temporal service options as a continuum or aspectrum, as we did for the spatial options, it can again be said thatthey range, starting from fixed-schedule services, from servicesspecified by the transportation provider to those specified by thetransportation consumer, or from relatively fixed services with fewchoices to relatively flexible services with many choices (from theconsumer's point of view).

REAL-WORLDEXAMPLES OFSERVICE TYPES

Framework

An automobile provides services with almost unlimited flexibility inrouting and scheduling, being able to access nearly any point served bythe road network at nearly any time desired by the driver. But this isprivate transportation, not public transportation service. All publictransportation options are less flexible in scheduling and in routing thana private auto.

Table 2-1 breaks down the spectrum of service options orstrategies from least flexible to most flexible in terms of systempredetermination in routing and scheduling. The options are groupedinto four primary categories, two of which have subcategories. Each isdescribed below. At the end of this chapter we will review some real-world examples, many of which utilize more than one or a hybrid ofthese options.

Table 2-1

RELATIVE FLEXIBILITY OF SERVICE OPTIONS


Service OptionsFixed-Route, Fixed-Schedule Service

Fixed-Route, FlexibleSchedule Service

Fixed-Route, FlexibleScheduling Service

The term traditional or "conventional" masstransit service refers to fixed-route, fixed-scheduleservice. Commuter bus and intercity bus also fallinto this category, and they are sometimesexcellent options for rural areas. Commuterservice can be effective for areas outside of urbanemployment centers, while intercity service isoften needed when the community is far awayfrom major medical facilities. Both of these typesof service are needed in a specific direction at aspecific time of day. Fixed-route, fixed-scheduleservice can also be effective within the communityduring the mid-day for shopping and personalbusiness types of trips. Small cities andcommunities with seasonal tourist attractions mayfind frequent all-day service linking a remoteparking facility with the destinations useful foralleviating traffic congestion and parking problems.

Fixed routes can take on a number of spatialcharacteristics. Broad categories of routes includeradial routes, loop routes, and circulators. Adding the dimension ofcoordinated timing to multiple routes can create a pulse system.

Jitney service comes to mind when one refers to fixed-route,flexible schedule service. For rural areas, this type of service is onlyreally useful in communities with seasonal tourist attractions because ofthe high densities of trip demands need to justify typical servicefrequencies. High-frequency service linking a remote parking facilitywith the destinations is useful for alleviating traffic congestion andparking problems. Other trip purposes would require a much lowerfrequency of service, making jitney service less appropriate than otheroptions.

This category of service often best meets the needs of a ruralcommunity and is becoming more widespread in urban areas as wellwith innovations for fixed-route operators to comply with thecomplementary paratransit provision of theAmericans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Twosubcategories are found in this category:route deviation and point deviation.

Route Deviation. In route-deviationservice, buses travel along a prescribedroute at scheduled times and maintainscheduled checkpoint stops. Nonscheduledstops will be accommodated within thedeviations. The bus may leave and return tothe route to pick up requests for demand-responsive trips near the route(Figure 2-1).Passengers may call in advance for route deviation, or may access thesystem at predetermined route stops. The limited geographic areawhere the bus may travel off the route is known as the route deviationcorridor.

Demand-Responsive Service

Figure 2-1: ROUTE DEVIATION

Point Deviation. In point-deviation service, fixed stops (points) areestablished on a predetermined time schedule, but the vehicle mayfollow any route needed to pick up individuals along the way and makeit to the fixed points on schedule (Figure 2-2).

Figure 2-2: POINT DEVIATION

Demand-responsive service is activated basedupon passenger requests. Usually passengerscall the scheduler or dispatcher and request aride for a particular date and time. A trip isscheduled for that passenger, the trip may alsobe canceled by the passenger. Demand-responsive service may operate on a curb-to-curb or door-to-door basis. Trips may bescheduled on an advanced reservation basis (typically, at least one dayin advance) or in "real-time" (for pick-up


AN OVERALLFRAMEWORK OFSERVICE OPTIONS

as soon as a vehicle can get there). Usually smaller vehicles are usedto provide demand-responsive service. There are three subcategoriesfor this type of service. In order of flexibility (from least flexible to mostflexible), they are described as follows:

Subscription. When a passenger or group of passengers requestsa repetitive ride (such as a daily or weekly service on an ongoing basis),trips are often scheduled on a subscription or "standing order" basis.The passenger makes a single initial trip request, and the transit systemautomatically schedules them for their trip(s) each day or week. Atransit system may sometimes limit peak-hour service to subscriptiontrips only (although this is not permitted in the case of ADAcomplementary paratransit).

Advanced Reservation. If passengers call ahead and reserve aride for a particular date and time in the future, this is called advancedreservation service. The transit system may set limits on the minimumand maximum advanced reservation times before the requested trip. Inthe case of ADA complementary paratransit, a transit system must alloweligible riders to schedule trips as much as 14 days in advance and aslittle as one day in advance.

Real-Time Scheduling. In real-time scheduling, also known asdial-a-ride service, passengers call and request demand-responsivetrips just before the trip is needed. This type of scheduling is mostconvenient for passengers, but most costly for a transit system toimplement as a large fleet of vehicles and drivers is needed to ensureall trip requests are met. This type ofscheduling is most frequently usedby taxi services.

The most useful way tounderstand alternativetransportation service options fora specific community is tosimultaneously consider the rangeof routing options from fixed tovery flexible and the range ofscheduling options from fixed tovery flexible. This kind of schemawas previously proposed byWegmann. Figure 2-3 showsWegmann's interpretation of therange of services that could be provided if the transportation servicevehicles were buses. While the most highly fixed options — forexample, express bus on exclusive busway — do not apply in the ruralcommunities, other service options on this figure are more applicable torural areas, including fixed-route, fixed-schedule systems, subscriptionbuses, point deviation services, many origins to few destinations with a24-hour advance request for a trip, and many-to-many services by taxiswithin small towns. All of these are possible and, indeed, commonwithin rural communities in the United States.

Source: Adapted from Wegmann, et. al., Market Opportunity Analysisfor Short-Range Public Transportation Planning.

Figure 2-3: RURAL TRANSPORTATION SERVICE OPTIONS

We can make this framework evenmore useful if we also consider therelative flexibility of the origins anddestinations of each trip. Table 2-2adds the third dimension of origins anddestinations, along with theconsideration of their degree offlexibility, to the two dimensions ofroutes and schedules, and providesreal-world examples of servicescurrently in use. From the passenger'spoint of view, the most restricted kind ofservices are those with fixed routes, fixed schedules, fixed origins, andfixed destinations. Obvious examples of services in this categoryinclude commuter buses, city buses, school buses, and intercity buses,as they start at predetermined origins and predetermined times andarrive at specific destinations at predetermined times. The decisionsabout origins, destinations, routes, and schedules are made by thesystem's operators, not the passengers.

If these modes are used, but passengers are allowed to "flag down"a passing vehicle and to board it, this opens up some flexibility withrespect to trip origins (but only along the predetermined already existingroutes of service). If passengers are to be allowed to board and alight atany points of their own choosing along a service route, this is what isknown as jitney service.

Table 2-2: EXAMPLES OF POTENTIAL SERVICE OPTIONS FOR RURAL PASSENGER TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS

*These modes usually offer door-to-door services.

Service-Delivery

Systems

forRuralPassengerTransportation

21

Transportation services for nutrition centers serving the elderly pickup different persons on a day-to-day or even trip-by-trip basis, makingtheir routes and origins flexible, even though they will most often arriveat their destinations (the nutrition centers) at predetermined times. Themost flexible service possible is that typified by taxi operations — andsome rural transportation systems — that will pick up passengers at anytime and anywhere within the service area and deliver them to anydestination within the service area.1

Rural transportation systems can use this table by first addressingthe issue of how much choice the individual passenger will be allowed.If the system's routes and schedules are to be predetermined by theoperator, the passenger has little choice; that decision suggests thatcertain specific fixed-route and/orfixed-schedule transportation modeswill be used. If passengers are tohave a great deal of latitude aboutwhere and when they travel, othermodes will be required for service.

Table 2-2 still focuses on publicpassenger transportation services; driving one's own car still providesthe ultimate flexibility in routing and scheduling, and similar options(such as rental cars) are close behind in flexibility. Although theconsumer's flexibility is a good starting point for designing rural publicpassenger transportation services, it certainly is not the only criterion,as we will discuss later in detail.

The way to use Table 2-2 is as follows. If, for example, the serviceplanned is to be fixed-route and fixed-schedule, then, if the origins anddestinations are also both fixed, we see that we are talking aboutservices that look like the typical city busor school bus. (These are the most strictlydefined services shown in the upper left-hand corner of the table; the other end ofthe diagonal of the matrix (in the lowerright-hand corner) shows the most flexibleservices, of which the taxi is the bestexample.) If, on the other hand, we desireflexible schedules on a fixed-route withflexible origins and destinations, this ismore like a classical jitney service.

1"Pure" taxi service — anytime, anywhere service on an exclusive ride basis — isexpensive to provide, particularly in low-density rural area. Allowing passengers ultimateflexibility in routing and scheduling their trips produces per-trip operating costs, whichexceed the levels which most rural residents will pay. Tradeoffs between flexibility andcost-effectiveness will be discussed later.


The Table should be used to develop some idea about the kind ofservice to be provided. For example, most people think thattransportation for the elderly to nutrition programs should involve pickupand return to the individual's house. This means that the origins of thetrips will change from day to day as different persons go to get meals,but the schedule will have to be about the same every day to get to themeal site (which is a fixed, specific destination) on time.

The point is to tailor the service to the needs of the area. Whilemany planners recognize this objective, few innovate with the servicedesign to produce a uniquely appropriate solution. There are manypossible options, as is shown in Table 2-3. The technique for success isto clearly identify needs and objectives so that a preferred option can bechosen.

Table 2-3

LIST OF POSSIBLE SERVICE OPTIONSFOR RURAL TRANSPORTATION OPERATORS

EXAMPLES OFINNOVATIVESERVICE DESIGNS

Nothing says that rural transportation systems have to be eitherfixed-route or demand-responsive, and, in fact, the most successfulsystems are hybrids of these two extreme patterns. For example, asystem called "scheduled demand-activated service" is one thattypically runs a fixed-route but only stops at certain places if called inadvance by the passenger desiring the trip. Another possibility is thepoint deviation system — such as that in Merrill, Wisconsin — wherethe vehicle arrives at certain "checkpoints" at scheduled times, but theroute in between those points may include deviations for door-to-doorpickups and deliveries. The key point to understand is that there aremany possible options for service.

The Central Vermont Transportation Association, Inc. (CVTA),based in Montpelier, Vermont, provides Section 18-subsidized publictransportation services in all of Washington County and parts of OrangeCounty. As the State Capitol, Montpelier attracts many workers andtourists as well as transportation-dependent persons needing access toessential goods and services. The variety of services operated by CVTAreflect these needs:

• Fixed-Route, Fixed-Schedule Bus Service betweenMontpelier and the nearby town of Barre, operated onweekdays between 6:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. and onSaturdays between 9:00 and 5:00 p.m. The bus travels backand forth along a major commercial corridor, stopping atseveral points along the way. At both ends, the bus makes asmall loop within the towns.

• Fixed-Route, Fixed-Schedule Shuttle Service is alsooperated within the downtown Montpelier area. This service isoperated on 10-minute headways between 7:00 a.m. and5:00 p.m. weekdays, and makes a loop which changesdepending upon the time of day.

• Route-Deviation Service is operated between Barre,Montpelier, and a nearby regional medical center onweekdays between 7:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. This route isactually a hybrid of fixed-route and demand-responsiveservice. Fixed-route service is operated between each of thecities and the hospital area. Door-to-door demand-responsiveservice is operated within the two cities at the beginning ofeach run and through the medical center area at the end ofthe run.

• Subscription Service is operated throughout WashingtonCounty to local community services between 9:00 a.m. and3:00 p.m. on weekdays, providing service in different areason different days. The core ridership of this service, which isopen to the public, is made up of seniors going to meal siteslocated in four communities.


Chenango County,New York

• Demand-Responsive Service is operated to transportMedicaid recipients to medical appointments, among othereligible social service clients and trip purposes. The hours ofavailability of this service are not set, as the bulk of thisservice is provided by volunteer drivers. CVTA maintains apool of about 50 volunteer drivers who are reimbursed fortheir mileage.

In addition to operating the variety of services described above,CVTA acts as a brokerage for carpools, vanpools, and Medicaid tripsthat can be made on either the existing routes or the demand-responsive services.

TC Transit (formerly Town & Country Transit) is operated byOpportunities for Chenango (OFC) in Norwich, New York. OFC is acommunity action agency providing a number of social services to theresidents of Chenango County, including transportation. As theCounty's Section 18 operator, TC Transit serves the general public aswell as agency clients. The transportation service types operated are asfollows:

• Fixed-Route, Fixed-Schedule Service. For the most part, itsfixed-routes have developed out of agency clienttransportation subscription patterns; however, the routes havebeen fixed and opened to the general public. Fixed stopswere established and published, and route and scheduleinformation is available. Agency clients continue to beidentified as such for agency billing, but routes do not changeon days when individuals do not ride as door-to-door stopsare not made. These routes bring residents from five generalareas of the County (South, West, North, Northeast, andSoutheast) into Norwich in the morning and return themduring the afternoon. During the midday, the routes tend toterminate in the outlying communities where local demand-responsive service is provided. Fixed-route service is alsooperated within the City of Norwich, on 1-hour headwaysbetween 9:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m.

• Subscription Service. For agencies with door-to-door clienttransportation needs, subscription routes continue to beoperated under contract to the agencies. These routes maychange on days when individual clients are not riding and asindividuals are added to or removed from the ridership.

• Demand-Responsive Service. In different communities ondifferent days of the week, local demand-responsive serviceis provided during the midday (10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.).Requests for this service must be made at least a day inadvance.

Gatlinburg,Tennessee

Gray's HarborCounty, Washington

Merrill, Wisconsin

Winona, Minnesota

In addition, demand-responsive service is provided for Medicaidrecipients traveling to and from medical appointments. The servicehours for this service are flexible to the needs of the riders who mayneed to access medical facilities outside of Chenango County.

TC Transit is exploring coordination of home meal delivery withpassenger transportation using specially equipped vehicles. This couldprove to be a unique method of delivering both people to services andservices to people, making rural transportation doubly effective.

Gatlinburg is a small community in the Smoky Mountains inEastern Tennessee. During the summer, the area serves a largenumber of tourists. A jitney shuttle service was implemented usingtrolley buses to alleviate traffic congestion and provide visitors easieraccess to the area. The buses follow two long routes (10 and 6 miles)and circulate among parking lots, hotels, and downtown, along 15-20minute headways.

Gray's Harbor County, a coastal community in the PacificNorthwest, lies southwest of Seattle, Washington. In the mid-1970s,Gray's Harbor Transportation Authority operated a "roving dial-a-ride"service, which is a hybrid of route deviation and demand-responsiveservices, in addition to fixed-route service. Four buses were assignedto specific communities that they served by "roving" along specificroutes several times a day. Upon request, a bus would deviate fromthe route to provide door-to-door service. Between route runs, thevehicles were used to provide pure demand-responsive service. Theroutes were timed to connect with the system's fixed-routes, whichprovided access to the nearby urban area, and with the ferry operatedby Gray's Harbor Transit Authority during the summer. After about 2years of operation, the demand-responsive element of the system wasdropped, although route-deviation service continued to be provided.

Merrill, a small community in North Central Wisconsin, has beenthe subject of a number of reports and case studies in the ruraltransportation literature. In 1975, an innovative point-deviation bussystem, the Merrill-Go-Round, began operations in the community.Two small buses run at half-hour headways, serving specificscheduled checkpoints but also providing door-to-door service uponrequest. The path of the checkpoints is fairly linear, but time isscheduled between the checkpoints to allow for deviations, so thatmost of the town is in the potential service area.

The Winona Transit System began operating in 1977, providingfixed-route service to the communities of Winona and Goodview alongthe Mississippi River. Three buses followed a figure eight loop, whichintersected in downtown Winona, a college town. Midday route-deviation, door-to-door service was available for elderly and disabledriders. A peak-hour shuttle service was also implemented for collegestudents.


Arrowhead Transit,Minnesota

SUMMARY

Six counties in Minnesota are served by Arrowhead Transit. Fixedroutes are scheduled for different parts of each county on different daysof the week. However, would-be passengers must call in advance toindicate that they will be riding that day. A minimum of five scheduledpassenger trips are required for operation of the route; if the requestsfall short of this, the route is canceled for that day and the requestedrides are provided by volunteer drivers using their own autos. A routescheduler and volunteer dispatcher ("area caller") are based in eachcounty. The service area for volunteer trips is limited to 2 miles on eitherside of the regular route.

This chapter has described the service options — the choices —that are available to rural transportation operators. The next chapterdescribes how to decide which of these options makes sense in yourcommunity.

Chapter 3:Which Service Type?How to Decide

Rural PassengerTransportationServices

The First Steps inService Decisions

Advantages andDisadvantages ofVarious ServiceTypes

Taking Advantageof CommunityCharacteristics

Considerations inTailoring Servicesto ParticularCommunities

OverallPerspectives onService Options

How Much ServiceShould You Offer?

How Much ServiceCan You Afford?

Summary


THE FIRST STEPSIN SERVICEDECISIONS

Statistical and anecdotal data show that nearly all rural transit servicesare used and appreciated in their communities. This suggests that theremay be no unique match between a particular community and aparticular service type, which means that there may be severalacceptable service options for your community. On the other hand,there may be one or two options from the group of possible choiceswhich offer the highest probability of cost-effective service. This chapterdiscusses what you should take into account when reconfiguring anexisting rural passenger transportation service or when starting a newone.

The very first step in determining what type or types oftransportation service would be most appropriate for your community isto determine (perhaps with your Advisory Committee) how much choiceyou feel that the customer should have in determining where they cango and when they can ride. You need to address the followingquestions:

• Will we pick up riders anywhere in the entire county? Will wetake them anywhere in the entire county? If not, what portionof the county will we serve?

• When will we provide rides? Will it be all 24 hours in a day oronly during some hours? Will we provide trips 7 days a weekor less?

• Where do we stand on the spectrum between providingunlimited services and providing very limited services?

Once basic questions like these have been addressed, theconsequences of the decisions can be identified. After determining theconsequences, it may be necessary to change the servicespecifications a bit. (This is what is known as an "iterative" planningprocess, which means that you do it over and over again until you getthe results that you really want.)

ADVANTAGES ANDDISADVANTAGESOF VARIOUSSERVICE TYPES

Fixed Route, FixedSchedule

It is possible that what you would like the services to be may notbe as important in your locality as otherfactors, such as how much they willcost. In general, very responsiveunlimited services are attractive to lotsof people and cost a lot; services thatare very limited in terms of where theygo and when they are available do notattract as many riders but they do notcost as much. The relative importanceof each of these factors is somethingthat needs to be determined by thepolitical decision makers in each community. The materials in this bookwill show you what other folks have determined is appropriate for theircommunities and how you can use that information to determine whatis best for where you live.

Each service type performs well in some circumstances and not sowell in others. This section looks at the advantages and disadvantagesof the following service options:

• fixed route, fixed schedule,

• fixed route, flexible schedule,

• flexible route, fixed schedule (including route deviation andpoint deviation services), and

• three types of demand-responsive services

- subscription,- advanced reservation, and- real time scheduling.

This option often works well in situations where

• the area is more densely settled,

• the demand for trips is high,

• trips are generally destined to one particular area (like adowntown), or

• type patterns are similar on a day-to-day basis (or, best of all,on an hour-to-hour basis, but this is rare).

This option does not work particularly well where

• the service area has a low population density, or

• trip patterns are variable and not very predictable.


Fixed Route,Flexible Schedule

Variable Route,Fixed Schedule

If your service area is: Densely populated

And your trip patterns are: Predictable

And your origins and destinations: Are similar from day to day

Then a good choice would be: Fixed Route, Fixed Schedule

This option works well in areas with high levels of demand along aparticular corridor or route. It does not work well in areas where originsand destinations are highly dispersed, nor in areas of lower density.

This particular option has very little applicability for rural transitsystems. Its only usage would be within certain urban portions of ruralareas, like downtowns of small rural centers. However, even in thesesmall towns, there are probably better service choices.

Route deviation and point deviation are the two subchoices withinthis option. Route deviation is the more frequently used of the two.

Route deviation services work well where

• the deviations are a relatively small part of the overalldemand and the overall running time of the route,

• the majority of the riders are not highly time-sensitive,

• door-to-door service is important to some but not allpassengers, or

• there are other positive reasons for providing services thatare more like fixed route than demand-responsive options.

Route deviation services do not typically work well where

• most of the trips are time sensitive, and

• some sort of basic route structures is not desirable for thiscommunity.

While point deviation services share many of the sameadvantages and disadvantages of route deviation services, pointdeviation services are more like demand-responsive operations. Routedeviation service would be preferred where passengers would bewaiting along the route to be picked up without advance notice to thesystem, and point deviation would be preferred when a service neededto be more highly responsive to changing or variable demands. Pointdeviation services may be preferable to route deviation services in ruralareas because the routes

Demand-Responsive ServiceTypes

Subscription Services

between checkpoints can be flexible, allowing the driver more routingoptions for maintaining the schedule, and requests for service can benegotiated or deferred so that the schedule is maintained.

If your service area is: Sparsely populated

And your trip patterns are: Similar on a day-to-day basis

And your origins and destinations: Vary from day-to-day

Then a good choice would be: Flexible Route, Fixed Schedule

Subscription services work well where

• travelers are relatively clustered around the same origins anddestinations,

• the demand for trips is once or twice a day (not all day long),

• the same persons take the same trips (that is, the sameorigins and destinations at the same times) on a frequent,regular basis, but the level of demand is not high enough tojustify fixed route, fixed schedule service, and

• travel demand densities are relatively low.

Subscription services do not work particularly well where trip patternsare not regular and predictable.

If your service area is: Densely or Sparsely populated

And your trip patterns are: Unpredictable

And your origins and destinations: Vary from day-to-day

Then a good choice would be: Demand-Responsive Service

Subscription services are seldom offered alone; the most commonpattern is for subscription services to be offered in conjunction withother demand-responsive options. Subscription services can create anespecially effective "back-bone" for shared ride demand-responsiveservices.


Advanced Reservation

Real-Time Scheduling

Summary

TAKINGADVANTAGE OFCOMMUNITYCHARACTERISTICS

Advanced reservation services are particularly useful where

• the trips are not taken on aregular pattern (such as those onsubscription services),

• ride sharing is used to reduce thecost per trip for each passenger,or

• overall demand levels are low andtrip origins are dispersed,

but advanced reservation services do not work particularly well insituations where there are immediate needs for service and where costis not a strong consideration for the passenger.

Real-time scheduling works well where

• highly personalized services are appropriate,

• service needs are immediate,

• door-to-door services are desired,

• origins and destinations arevariable and do not necessarily fitany preestablished patterns, and

• demand densities are not very lowand trip distances are not very long.

The disadvantages of real-time scheduling are primarily theopposite of its advantages: it is relatively costly, demand-specific, andresource (labor and capital) intensive. All vehicles in service must beradio-equipped in order to use this option.

As can be seen, all of these service types have distinctadvantages and disadvantages. Each, therefore, has circumstances towhich it is well suited and other circumstances where it would not bethe top choice.

There are different types of rural communities, and the communitytype will help determine which transportation service option or optionsmight be most appropriate. The most significant communitycharacteristics in terms of transportation options are settlementpatterns, employment and service patterns, and demand density.

Settlement Patterns Two rural communities of 30,000 persons may be vastly different interms of their potential transportation options due to their settlementpatterns. The first consideration is that of the degree of concentrationversus the degree of dispersion of the places where people live, whichcan be considered the usual origins of most trips. If 30,000 people arespread relatively evenly throughout one county of 300 square miles, aswe find in many Midwestern farming areas, some sort of demand-responsive service would probably be most attractive. Advancedreservations would help the transportation system cluster trips atcertain times and thereby improve system productivity.

Is your community populated like this ...?

... or more like this?

On the other hand, if another county had 25,000 people livingwithin one small city of ten square miles and 5,000 more persons livingthroughout the remainder of the 290 square miles, different serviceoptions would be better. First of all, it is possible that different serviceswould be provided to those living inside and outside of the small city.Outside of town, there could be demand activated advance reservationroutes running into town. Within town, there could be fixed routeservices, route deviations, or real-time scheduling. (The latter would bemost appropriate where local politicians had decided to support a highlevel of service.)

Different spatial patterns of this small city would help to decidewhich transportation service options would be best. If the settlementpattern basically resembled a circle or a square, demand-responsiveoptions


Employment andService Patterns

Demand Density

CONSIDERATIONSIN TAILORINGSERVICES TOPARTICULARCOMMUNITIES

User Access

might get the nod. If the city had developed in a linear fashion along ariver or within a valley, fixed route service types might be logical.

The locations of employment sites, human service agencies, andbusiness and personal services — usually the destinations of trips —also strongly influence the appropriateness of potential transportationservice options. The influences are similar to those exerted by housingpatterns — if the patterns are dispersed and spread out, low frequencydemand-responsive services would probably be preferred, while highlyconcentrated destinations could be served by more highly routed andscheduled services.

Whether or not the transportation system serves work trips (and theproportion of all of its trips that are work trips) will make a big differencein service options. Work-oriented transit services can provide relativelyhigh frequency services on relatively fixed routes (at least for theemployment origins and destinations), as shown by one of our casestudies in Chapter 4. Systems without a significant proportion of worktrips (that is, less than 10% of their trips) will tend more often to serveother trip types with demand-responsive services.

It should be noted that, in some rural communities, employmentconcentrations are not located where serviceconcentrations are located. Mining andmanufacturing are two examples of largertypes of employers not usually located withinthe towns where banks, stores, and publicservices are found. In such a situation,employment-related transit services may welldiffer from service-oriented transit services.

The number of trips within certain geographic areas and withinspecified time periods is an important consideration with respect toservice types. The higher the demand for trips, the more like fixedroutes and schedules the services can be. Lower demand densitiessuggest demand-responsive services, which may not be as frequent aseven every day at the lowest end of the scale, are more appropriate.

In designing and redesigning service options, several othervariables should also be considered. The most important of these areuser access, service combinations and transformations, and servicezones.

How will (or, how do) your passengers get to your service? Somepersons walk to bus stops, travel on the vehicle, and then walk to theirfinal destination. Others are picked up at the curb in front of their house,others are picked up at their front door, and some drivers go into riders'

ServiceCombinations andTransformations

homes to assist them out of the house and ontothe vehicle. Your choices include providing oneor several of these access types to yourpassengers. Generally, the choices as listedabove range from system-oriented to user-oriented, with system-oriented services focusingon fixed-route options, and user-orientedservices focusing on more demand-responsiveoperations.

Half of today's current rural transportationoperations provide more than one form ofservice. The most frequent combination is fixedroute plus demand-responsive.

There are many ways to combine services. One is to offer severaltypes of service at all times. Another is to offer different types of serviceat different times of the day. For example, some systems will provide akind of fixed-route subscription service early in the morning and late atnight to serve work trips and agency trips, and will then providedemand-responsive services during midday periods.

Another strategy is to provide one type of services for part of a tripand another service type elsewhere. A good example of this is thesituation in which a vehicle will circulate in a neighborhood to pick uppassengers, then will travel some distance without picking up additionalpassengers, and will then distribute the passengers to their variousdestinations at the other end of the trip. Some commuter servicesoperate in this fashion. If one vehicle performs the service, it is acirculator/line haul/circulator operation; if two or more vehicles areinvolved, one will be doing feeder service and another will be doing linehaul services.

Yet another strategy is to let services change over time. A servicethat starts out as a subscription operation may be transformed into afixed route operation if the demand is large enough and stable enoughover a long period of time.


Service Zones

Summary

OVERALLPERSPECTIVES ONSERVICE OPTIONS

Service zones offer another way to create a variety of services. If azonal pattern is established, it might be possible to provide 24-houradvance reservation service outside of townand fixed route service in town. Dividing alow-density county into several zones wouldallow services in some zones on certain daysof the week and services in other zones onthe other days of the week. Some systemsbeen able to provide more frequent serviceby using a "timed transfer system" at acentral transfer point or at the boundaries ofthe zones, so that a person will ride a certaindistance on one vehicle and then transfer toanother vehicle to complete the trip.

The importance of these multiple service strategies is that theyallow you to very closely approximate the travel needs of your clienteleby providing some services at different times and places and todifferent clients. Whether a very large or very small operation, thesemultiple service strategies can be an effective means of increasing thecost-effectiveness of your system.

What does this all mean? Keeping in mind our original observationthat many different service types are possible in any given community,there still are some overall considerations that are worth noting.

Demand-responsive services of one form or another are nowbeing offered by the vast majority of rural public transportationoperations. As shown in the graphic below, almost 90 percent oftoday's rural transportation operations that are funded by Section 18provide some demand-responsive services. Thirty-four percent of suchservices are demand-responsive only, another 31 percent providedemand-responsive services in conjunction with fixed route and otherservices, and another 22 percent are providing demand-responsive andother services (but not fixed-route services). Among those servicesresponsive to specific customer demands, subscription services areuseful where there is some regularity to ridership patterns. Standingorders or subscriptions also provide a nucleus of riders needed toestablish shared ride demand-responsive operations, which provideflexible trips at a relatively low level of cost. As driver wages are amajor component of overall system costs, the more riders served byeach driver, the more cost-effective is the entire operation.

Fixed route services are most useful where densities are higherand people are likely to walk to and from the bus stops to theirdestinations. These services work better where origins and destinationsare concentrated rather than dispersed. Because of the provisions ofthe Americans with Disabilities Act, public transit services can nolonger be provided solely by fixed route and schedule operations(unless these are commuter routes), but must be augmented bycomplementary

HOW MUCHSERVICE SHOULDYOU OFFER?

paratransit services (which are, in effect, advance reservation demand-responsive services). (Services provided by private, non-profitorganizations are exempted from this requirement.)

Route deviation services (which are not required by the ADA lawto provide complementary paratransit operations) are useful where mostof the riders have some flexibility in their schedules that allow for thedeviations without being seen as a decrease in service quality. Anumber of rural transit operations which formerly offered fixed route andfixed schedule services have switched to offering route deviationservices as a means of complying with the ADA and offering morepersonalized services to their riders.

Advanced reservation services are also useful in promotingshared ride operations. They serve situations in which trips aresomewhat predictable in advance but are not regular enough to warrantsubscriptions or standing orders. Many rural transit operations provideboth subscription and advance reservation services.

Real-time scheduling services, which closely resemble taxioperations, are not frequently provided by rural transit operators as astand-alone service type, but a number of rural transit operators will tryto fit last-minute callers into currently scheduled vehicle trips that arenominally subscription or advance reservation services as a means ofincreasing the cost-effectiveness of the service. Still, real-timescheduling offers a higher than usual level of service, and somecommunities have opted for this more responsive and more costlyoption within limited geographic areas.

One way of figuring out what is appropriate for your community is tolook at what other folks are doing in their communities. In reviewing theexperiences of others with specific service delivery patterns, there aretwo main questions: What's out there? and What works? WhileChapters 4 and 5 will examine in depth the performances of Section 18-funded systems across the country, this sectionsummarizes some of the highlights in some of thosechapters.

One way of answering the "How much?"question is to examine results from some of the mostproductive and cost-effective systems (such as thosedescribed in the case studies in Chapters 4 and inthe statistical information provided in Chapter 5).Ranges of experience for these systems are shown in Table 3-1, and itcan be easily seen that the ranges are wide indeed: for some of thesmallest ranges, the largest case is nine or ten times as large as thesmallest case, and other ranges are even larger. So there is still a wideelement of choice available in rural transit operations, even among themost cost-effective and productive ones.


Table 3-1

RURAL TRANSPORTATION SERVICE BENCHMARKS:HIGH PERFORMANCE SYSTEMS

Looking at the results from these systems as benchmarks, somesuggestions emerge:

• Population and Area Served: These figures suggest upperand lower limits to the question of how large a service areashould be chosen. Below 5,000 persons, the best strategymay be to combine forces with adjoining areas to create aservice base which is large enough to support the facilitiesand personnel required to provide even basic services. Above60,000 persons, perhaps some strategy should be found todivide the service area into discrete units. The smallest areashown represents the city limits of a small town, while thelargest is the size of a west Texas county. Again, if theservice area you are considering exceeds 3,000 squaremiles, you should probably consider dividing the area intoseparate transit operations.

• Persons Served and Square Miles per Vehicle: Thesefigures are good indicators of the number of vehicles requiredfor service. Not less than 650 persons per vehicle nor morethan 7,000 persons per vehicle is an excellent rule of thumbfor initial fleet planning. Similarly, it would probably not bewise to consider serving much more than 700 square milesper vehicle without some compelling reason to do so.

HOW MUCHSERVICE CAN YOUAFFORD?

• Trips per Person and per Vehicle per Year: These figuresshow the results that cost-effective systems are obtainingwhen they offerservices. At lessthan one trip peryear for all personsin your servicearea, you shouldprobably bemaking improvements to attract more riders. At the other endof the spectrum, it may not be wise to expect more than ninetrips per year for each person in your service area. For eachvehicle in service, you should be getting at least 4,000 tripsper year, but you probably will not get more than 14,000 tripsper year. These figures will be useful in making cost andbudget estimates.

The difference between transportation services that we want toprovide and the services that actually are provided often relates to thefunds available for those services. Table 3-2 looks at the cost resultsfrom both the high-performance case studiesdescribed in Chapter 4 and the nationalsample of systems that is described in detail inChapter 5. The following rules of thumbregarding cost factors have emerged from theirexperiences:

• Cost per trip: You should budgetbetween $1.50 and $9.70 per tripthat you plan to serve. For example, if your service areapopulation is 30,000 and you expect that the average trip ratewill be 5 trips per person per year, or 150,000 annual trips onyour system, you will probably need between $225,000 and$1,455,000 annually to operate this service. Yes, this is ahuge range, but that is the range of actual experiences.Average costs per trips were about $5.65.

• Annual budget: The annual budget for the eight high-performance operations ranged from $25,000 to over $1.3million. The $25,000 figure at the low end looks like anexcellent rule of thumb as the "entry level price" for a minimalrural public transportation operation.

• Cost per vehicle: Cost per vehicle among these systemsranged from $16,500 to $50,000. The one-bus systems wereclustered around $25,000 per vehicle per year, supporting therule of thumb noted above. The tables in Appendix Ddescribing the national sample also support this figure.

• Cost per hour: Based on the national sample, it will probablycost you between $6 and $48 for every vehicle hour ofservice you provide. The average figure was about $27 perhour.


SUMMARY

• Cost per mile: It will probably cost you between $0.40 and$4.50 for every vehicle mile of service you provide. Theaverage was $2.35.

• Cost per person served per year: The cost-effectivesystems examined spent between $3.00 and $30 per personper year to deliver their services. This is a relatively conciseand powerful figure for planning practices; looking again at ahypothetical service area population of 30,000 persons,between $90,000 and $900,000 would be required annually toprovide rural public transportation services. At the low end,not even one trip per day would be provided to most parts ofthe area, while quite extensive services could be provided atthe upper end of the expenditures.

Table 3-2

RURAL TRANSPORTATION SERVICE BENCHMARKS: COSTFACTORS FROM THE NATIONAL SAMPLE

*Figures from the sample of high-performance case studies.

These ranges (representing one standard deviation, which meansthat the range represents about the middle two-thirds of all systems) areextremely broad, again demonstrating that a wide variety of systemshave been implemented in rural areas across this country. So the goodnews is that you have lots of options that could provide good service foryou. The bad news is that there is no one simple, cookbook answer toquestions like "Which service?" and "How much of it?" for any onecommunity.

This chapter has begun the process of providing more and moredetailed information for your consideration. You should now have a firmgrasp of the service options that may be best for you, depending on thespecific needs and goals of your community. The importance of tailoringservices to local demographic, geographic, financial, and political

opportunities and constraints has been stressed. We've given you somebroad outlines of services typically produced and resources typicallyconsumed by the various service types, and will expand on those issuesin later chapters.

Even more detailed information is coming next, as we delve deeperinto the details of rural transportation system design and performance.The next chapter describes a number of case studies in depth. We willbe particularly interested in uncovering those factors which seem tomake a particular service design especially appropriate for a particularcommunity. Chapter 5 will provide you with more statistical details aboutthe specific service options and the levels of performance they tend toachieve. The last chapter looks at other sources of advice andassistance that you may wish to consider in deciding how to reconfigureexisting services or to design new ones.

TCRP Report 6 - Transportation Research...

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