CUTR Webcast Recording: A Tool for Assessing the Economic Impacts of Spending on Public Transit

In this project, an Excel-based template tool was developed for transit agencies, local governments, and other stakeholders of public transit to estimate the economic impacts of spending on public transit. Features include the following:

• Uses input-output multipliers from the Regional Input-Output Modeling System (RIMS II) (U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis) to capture the direct, indirect, and induced effects of spending on public transit in terms of gross output (sales), value added (regional gross domestic product, GDP), labor earnings, and jobs (person-years of full- and part-time employment) for any study area consisting of one or more spatially-contiguous counties.

• Explicitly considers whether spending originated from funds inside or outside the study area, whether spending was made inside or outside the study area, whether funds originated from borrowing, whether spending was for land acquisition, and the effect of full employment on estimated job impacts.

• Is designed for estimating the economic impacts of spending on transit primarily on existing service or on service expansion in an area that already has transit service; is applicable, with caution, to new transit services for areas that do not already have transit service.

This webcast discussed methodological factors, described the tool and its use, and presented applications of the tool to Central Florida counties with urban public transit service. Download a PDF copy of the presentation. Download the final report and spreadsheet tool.