BRT+ Centre of Excellence invites to its monthly webinar series to share timely public transit research and encourage ongoing collaboration. Our January Webinar is:
“Who Likes the New Express Route? An Empirical Analysis with Fare Card Data from Chicago”
Presented by Neema Nassir on January 4th, 17:00 Eastern Daylight Time (CSLT +2:00). To join the webinar you can register here. There will be sent all the information needed to connect to the platform.
For future webinars, you can register here to be noticed. Soon, at this post, you will find the Video and Slides from this webinar, and here from previous meetings.
Summary:
Bus stop spacing is generally short in the USA and transit agencies sometimes supplement their local routes on high demand corridors with a parallel express route, in order to both provide a choice of faster rides to their passengers, and also to improve the operational efficiency of their service. Typically some resources are shifted from the local service when the express service is introduced. There are always segments of the passenger market that will benefit from such service changes, but also inevitably, there are segments of the market that may experience negative impacts. For example, passengers whose preferred stops (boarding or alighting) are not served by the express route will see a reduced frequency. These passengers either have to wait longer for the local service or walk longer to an express stop to benefit from fast (express) and/or frequent (express or local) services. Therefore, effective design of express and local services can help maximize the markets that benefit from the changes, and minimize the negative impacts. Better understanding of the passenger demand markets can play a pivotal role in achieving successful outcomes when new express services are being introduced. This presentation reports on an ongoing empirical analysis of demand responses to introduction of an express route in one of the high demand bus corridors in Chicago, using the data of the fare collection system from years before and after the express service is introduced.
Bio:
Neema is a Senior Postdoctoral Associate at the MIT Transit Lab, and serves in research, research supervision and lecturing roles in the area of urban transportation systems at MIT. Neema’s research deals with the new generation of modeling tools and techniques, designed to understand, plan for and manage the urban transportation systems of the 21st century. There are two dominant streams in his research; 1) working with the emerging wealth of mobility sensing big data to capture the most accurate picture of mobility patterns, needs and preferences in our cities; and 2) simulation and exploration of the new concepts, phenomena, technologies and opportunities continuously introduced in the transportation arena, such as ride-hailing and ride-sharing services, autonomous and connected vehicles, and smart or personalized transit services.
