CUTR Webcast Recording: Texas Transit Needs Assessment and Performance Dashboard

October 19, 2017, 12:00PM (ET)

Texas Transit Needs Assessment and Performance Dashboard

Texas Department of Transportation Public Transportation Division (TxDOT-PTN) administers federal and state grants for public transportation in Texas and funds 26 urban and 37 rural transit districts. Sponsored by TxDOT-PTN, the Transit Mobility program at Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) built a performance dashboard to create a one-stop information center for transit districts in Texas and conducted a transit needs assessment for all state-funded transit districts to identify both geospatial and service span gaps and estimate the costs to fill these gaps. During the webcast, two researchers from TTI will walk audiences through key features of the performance dashboard, talk about the methodologies and outcomes of the needs assessment, and share challenges and lessons learned. Download Handout

Presenters: Shuman Tan and James Cardens, Texas A&M Transportation Institute

Shuman Tan is an associate transportation researcher with the Transit Mobility Program at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. She earned her Master’s of Urban Planning from Texas A&M University in 2013. Shuman’s research interests are in the areas of transit system performance analysis, fare policy impact analysis, GTFS preparation and application, data visualization in transit, regional transit planning, and best practice research and case study development. Currently, she is leading the construction of Texas Transit Performance Dashboard website.

James Cardenas is an assistant transportation researcher in the Transit Mobility Program at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. His research experience at TTI includes regional transit coordination planning, geospatial analysis, case study research, and data analysis, specifically involving National Transit Database (NTD) data and other transit databases. James has led and assisted with regional coordination planning efforts for multiple transit districts in Texas. He was a part of the research team for TCRP Research Report 192: Decision-Making Toolbox to Plan and Manage Park-and-Ride Facilities. He conducted case studies and authored two chapters for the guidebook. In the latest iteration of TTI’s Texas Transit Needs Assessment, James analyzed NTD and statewide transit databases to create rural and small urban transit cost inflation indices, used for accurately portraying cost allocations to fill identified needs in service and span.