Article Abstracts

Volume 5, No. 1, 2002

Benefits of Proximity to Rail on Housing Markets: Experiences in Santa Clara County

Robert Cervero and Michael Duncan
Department of City and Regional Planning, University of California

Santa Clara County, California, home to both light- and commuter-rail services, has turned to transit-oriented development as a means to both reduce traffic congestion and redress severe shortages of affordable housing units. This article examines the degree to which proximity to two forms of rail transit–light rail and commuter rail—confer benefits to residential properties in terms of sales values. Hedonic price models are estimated that show job proximity over the transit network as well as nearness to rail stops substantially add value to residential parcels. All else being equal, large apartments within a quarter mile of a light-rail station commanded land-value premiums as high as 45 percent. Such market profits not only lure developers to station sites, but also provide a potential source of revenues to local agencies that have set up the kinds of value-recapture programs that allow them to participate in land-appreciation benefits that accrue.

Alternative Bus Stop Configuration: An Analysis of the Effects of Bus Bulbs

Kay Fitzpatrick, Kevin Hall, Melissa Finley, and Stephen Farnsworth
Texas Transportation Institute

Bus bulbs are sections of sidewalk that extend from the curb of a parking lane to the edge of the through lane. A major advantage of using bus bulbs is the creation of additional space at a bus stop for shelters, benches, and other bus patron improvements when the inclusion of these amenities would otherwise be limited without the additional space. Several large cities on the West Coast have begun to explore bus bulbs as one of many strategies used in developing a transit preferential program. Researchers visited four transit agencies that use bus bulbs (San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, British Columbia) to observe and document existing and planned bus bulbs. Before and after studies were conducted to determine if there was a change in pedestrian and traffic operations after the installation of bus bulbs. The bus bulb design was clearly an improvement in pedestrian space as compared to the bus bay design. The average amount of available space for pedestrians and transit patrons alike improved from 19 to 44 square feet/pedestrian (1.8 to 4.1 sq m/ped) after the bulb was constructed. The replacement of a bus bay with a bus bulb improved vehicle and bus speeds on the block. The block with the farside stop saw a statistically significant increase in vehicle travel speed during both nonpeak (9.5 to 15.7 mph [15.3 to 25.3 km/h]) and peak (11.4 to 20.9 mph [18.4 to 33.6 km/h]) periods

An Empirical Exploration Of Bus Travel Times and Dwell Times in a Highly Competitive Exclusive Busway

Daniel A. Rodríguez, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Arturo Ardila, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Busway transit has reemerged as a cost-effective transportation alternative for providing urban mobility. This article examines the operational characteristics of an exclusive busway system with high passenger ridership and subject to the competitive forces of individual operators. Results of a running time model suggest that the increase in running time associated with an additional passenger movement is low but that the delay imposed by recurrent vehicle decleration and acceleration related to frequent stops is high. Frequent vehicle stops reduce fuel efficiency, increase pollution, reduce travel time, and decrease productivity. Results of several specifications of dwell-time regression models indicate that established models tend to yield biased coefficients for boarding and alighting passenger movements. These model results also confirm that the dwell-time delay associated with an additional passenger movement is very low in Bogotá’s busway even though average dwell time per passenger tends to be high. It follows, therefore, that organizing passenger boarding and alighting operations and consolidating passenger activity points promise to be effective strategies for improving operations. More broadly, the findings indicate that under a deregulated operating environment, a regulatory framework that includes monitoring operations and enforcing designated stop locations remains important for efficient busway operations.

Service Design in Competitive Tendering of Bus Routes
Isam A. Kaysi and Ali S. Abbany
American University of Beirut

Transit systems and buses, in particular, generally suffer from severe financial problems that affect their sustainability and levels of service. In an attempt to revive these systems, public authorities have recently moved toward more private sector participation, which could improve cost efficiency. This participation can take different forms depending on the roles of each sector in the provision and production of public transport. This article examines the different models for private sector participation in the provision of mass transit services, describing their respective benefits and disadvantages for both transit providers and users. Focus is, however, given to one specific strategy—competitive tendering—because of its successful application worldwide and its suitability to the case study context. Competitive tender structuring elements that relate to determining the size of the contract to be tendered as well as the allocation of routes among bid packages (“service design”) is discussed in particular. A sound methodology for assessing bid packages of routes is developed and then applied for the case study of Beirut, Lebanon.

Defining the Gross Cost and Net Cost Options for New Delhi Public Transport

Aaron Windecker
Duke University

Increasing the use of public bus transportation and decreasing the use of private modes is the remedy for New Delhi’s congested streets and polluted air. To achieve this, the provisioning of bus services in New Delhi should be privatized to reduce the financial burden on the government and augment capacity. Regulation of the privatized system will be needed to improve safety; prevent private operators from concentrating only on denser routes; improve reliability, punctuality, and other standards of quality; rationalize fares; and improve network design. This article discusses each of these goals and assesses the applicability in the New Delhi context of the different privatization models used internationally to meet these goals. Two composite strategies are recommended for meeting all of the goals: the gross cost option and the net cost option.

Transit Ridership Efficiency as a Function of Fares
Gerrit R. Moore

The purpose of this study is to assist in the development of transit fare policies that exploit the benefits of public transit in the mix of transportation options for Washington State. The study relates to ridership performance, fare-box recovery, and system utilization. Ridership efficiency, a measure of transit performance, is estimated for 24 State transit systems. A mathematical model is developed that relates fares to ridership efficiency. The ridership efficiency function follows the complement of a cumulative normal probability distribution. The tail of the distribution is reached at $0.95. Higher fares have little impact on ridership efficiency. An operating cost model to estimate the fare-box recovery and operating cost subsidy is developed. Ridership, fare-box recovery, and system utilization estimates are made for selected transit systems