Document Type

Article

Publication Date

January 2016

Publication Title

Transportation Research Record

Volume

2539

First Page

48

Last Page

54

DOI

10.3141/2539-06

Keywords

transit, bus, span of service, service span, ridership

Disciplines

Transportation

Abstract

Ridership response to changes in a bus route’s span of service—the start time of the first trip to the end time of the last trip each day—was examined specifically for hours that were not altered by a change in the span of service. Data were obtained for 39 routes from nine transit agencies in the western United States that experienced changes in the span of service without any other types of changes to enable the largest known analysis of such data from American transit systems. Results demonstrated that bus routes receiving an increase in the span of service experienced a 12.4% increase in ridership during unaltered hours (a 3.4% increase in ridership during unaltered hours after adjusting for systemwide ridership changes). Bus routes that received a decrease in the span of service experienced a 0.1% decrease in ridership during unaltered hours (a 1.5% decrease in ridership during unaltered hours after adjusting for systemwide ridership changes). Possible reasons for ridership increases following a span decrease that occurred in some samples were explored. The agency that implemented the largest collection of span increases experienced simultaneously the largest percentage increase in ridership during unaltered hours and thereby showed similarity to another large span increase outside the United States, a parallel that indicated a potential synergistic effect warranting additional research. Other factors present in routes that experienced relatively strong ridership responses during unaltered hours are also presented for agencies to consider when possible changes to service spans are evaluated.

Comments

This is the Accepted Manuscript of an article that appeared in Transportation Research Record, volume 2539, 2016. The Version of Record (VOR) may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.3141/2539-06
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