Title: ESTIMATING THE EFFECTS OF ALTERNATE SERVICE LEVELS ON RURAL TRANSIT RIDERSHIP
Abstract: Estimating demand is an essential step in rural transit planning. Several techniques have been developed in other studies for estimating demand. This paper deals with the need to assess public response to alternate service levels and travel flexibility on proposed rural transportation systems. A public opinion survey was conducted in rural Otsego County, New York (56,000 pop.) among 339 households, thirty of which had no telephones. The survey presented three public transportation options, fixed route, dial-a-bus, and mobility club, and asked various questions regarding possible use of such services at different fare and service levels, (reservation time, travel flexibility, etc). The survey questionnaire was designed to minimize non-commitment bias and responses were separated on the basis of car availability to minimize the need for non-commitment adjustment. Some non-commitment adjustment was necessary, particularly for the car available group. This adjustment was based on the trip rate of the existing dial-a-bus sytem operating in Oneonta (pop. 16,000) the county's largest city. Matrices relating potential ridership to fare, service levels, and travel flexibility were developed for each transit option. While no suggestion is made that the demand estimates developed for Otsego County are transferable to other areas, the relative changes in demand resulting from changing fare, service levels, and travel flexibility should be generally useful. /Author/
Publication Year: 1978
Publication Date: 1978-08-01
Language: en
Type: article
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