Center Identification Number:  77605      

 

Project Title:  Impact of Employer Based Programs on the Transit System Ridership and Transportation System Performance   

 

Co-Principal Investigators:        

Phil Winters
TDM Program Director
813-974-9811
Email: winters@cutr.usf.edu

Nevine Georggi, Research Associate
Phone: (813) 974-9770
Email: georggi@cutr.usf.edu

Institution:                             

 

Center for Urban Transportation Research

University of South Florida

Fax: 813-974-5168

 

External Project Contact:     

 

Michael Wright

Public Transportation Office / Transit Planning

850-414-4529

Email: michael.wright1@dot.state.fl.us

 

 

I.  Project Objective/Problem Statement

In addition to standard measurement of roadway performance such as level of service (LOS), evaluation of the transportation system performance should include such factors as mobility, accessibility, reliability, cost-effectiveness, economic well- being, sustainability, environmental quality, safety, equity, and customer satisfaction. At the local level, for example, universal transit passes, where all employees are given the form of a flash pass for a free or discounted ride on transit, have significantly reduced the need to build additional parking and have shifted more travelers to modes other than driving alone.  Widespread adoption of alternative work schedules programs are another type of employer work/life policy that is likely to influence travel behavior, at a corridor or regional level. For example, the United States General Services Administration (GSA) estimates 80% of federal agencies and 600,000 federal workers are on an alternate work schedules such as telework or compressed work week (i.e., trips may be completely avoided or shifted to a different time of day).  Surely these impressive numbers directly correlate to improvements in transportation system efficiency and performance.  If these thousands of workers were to join in daily peak hour traffic then levels of transportation system congestion, air quality, lost time, vehicles miles traveled, and fuel consumption will dramatically worsen. Although this observation may be apparent, there is not a recognized process for performance measurement that captures the actual impacts of employer-based TDM programs on a transportation system at local, corridor and regional levels. 

Currently, the most common performance measures to evaluate employer-based programs used by FDOT, as part of the Florida Commuter Assistance Programs’ (CAPs) progress are:

    • Number of commuters requesting assistance
    • Number of commuters switching modes
    • Number of vans in service (where applicable)
    • Number of vehicle trips eliminated
    • Vehicle miles eliminated
    • Employer contacts
    • Parking spots saved/parking needs reduced
    • Commuter costs saved
    • Major accomplishments

The scale of the employer-based programs is another issue. Though the programs may, in total, substantially reduce vehicle miles of travel, the reductions are likely to be spread geographically and temporally so the “observed” impact may be difficult to discern. Rather than remove the need for “full lanes”, the actual benefits to the transportation system in terms of reductions in lane capacity are likely to be only “slivers” of road capacity.

There are many levels of TDM evaluation, the last level being system performance. Some evaluation efforts are taking a bottoms-up approach to evaluation by systematically conducting evaluations at the program level but designed to avoid double-counting and rolling the effects up to a regional level (e.g., Atlanta and Europe’s MOST MET).

II. Project Abstract

This project will develop a methodology for measuring the impacts of employer-based transportation demand management (TDM) programs on transit system ridership and transportation system performance, in particular from the management and operations perspective. These programs could significantly affect system performance at a local, corridor or regional levels.

The project’s hypothesis is that a wide scale adoption of employer-based strategies is likely to have a noticeable difference on the transportation system at the local, corridor and regional levels, including the public transportation system. This project will seek to identify the key performance measures, methods, and results in use today. Documentation of these impacts for the transportation community may influence the support for such programs as a systems management strategy.

The project’s products should facilitate multimodal, performance based planning for use by transportation planners and decision makers. The linkage to public transportation system performance is likely to come through the impact of these employer-based programs on ridership and mobility. For example, FDOT focused on ‘‘mobility’’ as the key system performance measure for ‘‘supporting investment decisions and policy analysis.’’ Mobility—defined as the ease with which people and goods move throughout the community, state, and world—is measured as the quantity of travel served, quality of travel, accessibility, and use of transportation systems.

This research will attempt to answer the questions such as:

    • How is a transportation system defined?
        ­ Are the criteria different for TDM strategies?
        ­ Excluding LOS, what are performance measures of transportation systems?
        ­ Which measures capture changes due to implementation of TDM strategies?
        ­ Which ones capture changes from employer programs?

    • What are established performance measures of transit systems?
        ­ What factors influence ridership?
        ­ Which factors are influenced by TDM strategies in general?
        ­ Which ones are influenced by employer-based programs?

    • What are the “What, why, who, how and where” of establishing performance measurement systems for employer-based programs?

This project will seek to establish the relationship between employer-based strategies and transportation system performance. The ultimate goal will be the development of some methods or indices that measure the impacts of such programs on the overall transportation system and clearly communicate these impacts to policy makers and transportation decision makers.

 

III.  Objectives/Tasks

The proposed scope of services for this project consists of the following tasks.

Task 1. Review Literature and State of the Practice

a) Review the literature to identify performance measures and frameworks used for developing performance measurement systems used in the transportation industry, such as commuter assistance programs (CAP), intelligent transportation systems (ITS), and performance based planning, as well as measures for employer-based programs. Also, supplement the literature review by actively using the TRANSP-TDM listserv and other means to locate examples of how employer-based demand management policies and programs have been measured and evaluated. Emphasis will be on how the results are then communicated in the form of outcomes on the management and operations of the transportation system. Focus will be placed on comprehensive programs such as trip reduction requirements rather than single tactics (e.g., impact of vanpool programs). Also under this subtask, review documented assessments of employer-based programs at the worksite, transit system, set of intersections, activity center, corridor, regional and system levels. There has to be a way to account for the synergy with a focus on specific target activity centers and/or corridors. The impact of such programs would be much greater (and easier for transit to serve and to measure) if there is a focus on a particular corridor. Finally, examine non-U.S. approaches to evaluation. Specifically, review MOST (Mobility Management Strategies for the next Decade) Monitoring and Evaluation Toolkit (MET) that outlines assessment levels and performance measures with the last level being system impacts, (http://mo.st/index_msie.html).
b) Review of the Related TRB’s Research in Progress Projects; a review of TRB’s Research In Progress (RIP) database identified several that could relate to this study including Oregon DOT’s Transportation Plan Performance Measures, Texas DOT’s GIS-Integrated Traffic Models for Mobile6-Based Air Quality Conformity and TCM Analysis, Washington State DOT’s FLOW Evaluation Performance Measure Enhancements, Federal Transit Administration’s Transit Performance Monitoring System, and Texas DOT’s Congestion Index Implementation.
c) Review findings and conclusions of both national TRB conferences on “Performance Measures to Improve Transportation Systems and Agency Operations,” 2000 and 2004.
d) Coordinate efforts with the TRB’s Committee on TDM. Based on the findings of the previous tasks, CUTR will coordinate efforts with the TRB’s Committee on TDM to facilitate a workshop at the 2005 TRB annual meeting on evaluation issues and practices. This workshop would serve to kick-off this project.

Deliverable: Technical Memorandum 1 – This Tech Memo will summarize tasks 1a, b, c, and d while defining the research gap in evaluating/monitoring the indicators or performance measures used to assess impacts of employer-based programs on local or corridor transportation systems and/or transit systems.

Task 2. Net Conferences on TDM Performance Measures and Evaluation Approaches

This task would start by forming a peer review panel. With input from the panel and cooperation of the TRB Committee on TDM, a series of up to three netconferences will be planned for the purposes of:
    • Spotlighting approaches to selecting performance measures for assessing TDM performance. Potential speakers including:
        ­ South Florida Commuter Services (Center for Urban Transportation Research)
        ­ Mobility Report (Texas Transportation Institute)
        ­ Atlanta Framework Partners (Center for Transportation and the Environment)
        ­ Commute Trip Reduction Program in Washington State
    • Summarizing up to four white papers, commissioned by NCTR, to develop measures of effectiveness (indicators, models,         performance measures, measurement processes/tools) for employer- based programs regarding impacts of transportation system and transit ridership
    • Facilitating discussion among netconference “attendees” on plenary presentations and white papers.
    • Placing recorded netconferences on NCTR website with ability to submit comments, etc. (e.g., discussion board). Promote the availability to the various industry groups (e.g., ITS, traffic operations, etc.).

Deliverable: Recorded Netconferences will be published on the NCTR website

Task 3. Prepare Final Report Outlining a Procedure for Measuring the Impacts of Employer-based Programs on Transit Ridership and the Transportation System Performance

Prepare draft final report, including a set of recommendations on preferred measures, approach and means for communicating to different stakeholders to facilitate incorporating into performance based planning. The report will be submitted to FDOT and peer panel for review and comment. Accordingly, revisions will be made; report will be finalized and printed as per the contractually required number of final reports.

Deliverable: Provide the final report to FDOT

Task 4. Develop Online Course Linking Employer-Based Programs with the Performance Measurement Systems

This on-line course will train participants to:
    • Apply various approaches and techniques to define performance measures.
    • Understand how to integrate performance measurement with planning and decision-making processes.
    • Present different performance results to different audiences.
    • Learn and practice by example how to apply the procedure (defined in task 3) to a wide variety of program areas.

Deliverable: On-line Course

IV. Deliverables

There will be four deliverables for this project. Technical Memorandum 1 – Summary of reviewed literature including national TRB conferences on the topic of performance measures uses in transportation system improvement and any ongoing related research from the TRB RIP database. The memo will also review the state of practice for evaluating TDM programs’ impact on transit ridership. The second deliverable is a set of three net conferences accessible from the NCTR website. The third deliverable will be the “Final Report”, in both draft and final forms. Once approved by the FDOT Project Manager and the Research Office, 12 copies of the “Final Report”, an electronic version, and an electronic version of the project summary will be submitted to the Research Office. The final deliverable will be in the form of an online course linking employer-based programs with the performance measurement systems.

 

V.  Project Schedule

 

RESEARCH	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15
TASK	A	S	O	N	D	J	F	M	A	M	J	J	A	S	O
Task 1	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
Conduct literature review	12%	28%	40%	52%	65%	85%	100%
Task 2	1	1	1	1	1	1	2	2	2	2	2	2	1	1	1
Hold Netconferences							9%	34%	51%	71%	87%	100%
Task 3	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	2	2	2	2	1	1	1
Prepare final report									19%	39%	68%	100%
Task 4	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	2	2	2	2	2
Develop online course											20%	40%	60%	80%	100%

 

VI.  Project Budget