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Reassessing Passenger Mile Data for Transit Planning and Fund
Allocation
This document provides information on the collection and use
of passenger mile (PM) data that may be helpful to the transit
industry in reconsidering the use of PM data for transit
planning and fund allocation. Historically the industry
seldom uses PM data. This reluctance results largely from
five perceptions that the industry has had about PM data: 1)
determining PM is difficult; 2) determining PM is expensive; 3)
PM data are unreliable; 4) using PM data in fund allocation
favors transit agencies serving longer trips; and 5) PM data are
not useful beyond reporting them to the National Transit
Database. This paper provides evidence that determining PM
is not as difficult or expensive as perceived and that PM data
are more reliable than perceived. The paper also shows
that using PM data in fund allocation can be neutral to transit
agencies serving trips of different lengths. Finally, the
paper presents examples of how PM has been usefully applied in
the industry by both non-operating and operating agencies.
By taking advantage of new data collection technologies and
sampling methods, there are opportunities to productively apply
PM data in transit planning. A copy of the final report is
available here in pdf format and in
HTML format. For more information,
contact Xuehao Chu at
xchu@cutr.usf.edu.
8.31.05
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813.974.5168 fax