Browsing by Author "Tomhave, Benjamin"
Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item After Study of The Bus Rapid Transit A Line Impacts(Center for Transportation Studies, University of Minnesota, 2018-12) Tomhave, Benjamin; Zhang, Yufeng; Khani, Alireza; Hourdos, John; Dirks, Peter; Olsson, Jack; Tao, Tao; Wu, Xinyi; Cao, JasonIn response to the limited awareness surrounding Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and the A Line, this study provides answers to questions regarding the operation and public perception of the A Line in the Twin Cities region, Minnesota. Two traffic scenarios were studied, one for high-volume oversaturated traffic during the Minnesota State Fair, and a second for normal operating conditions. For both scenarios, intersection queue length and traffic flow rate were compared before and after an A Line bus. It was found that in both time periods (Fair and non- Fair), the dwelling of an A Line bus during a green traffic signal did not have a statistically significant impact on intersection queue length or traffic-flow rate at either of the two researched stations. From an analysis of the 2016 On-Board Survey, it was determined that passengers are more satisfied by the overall service of the A Line than local buses while there is not a significant difference in overall satisfaction compared to express buses, light rail and commuter rail. The top three important service attributes to overall satisfaction are “paying my fare is easy,” “hours of operation,” and “handling of concerns/complaints.” It is recommended that the transit agency improve the attributes that have higher relative influences and lower mean performances. Based on this criterion, the attributes that should be given priority are “shelter/station conditions and cleanliness” and “behaviors of other passengers and atmosphere on board.”Item Effective Community Engagement Strategies For Implementing Transit Advantages(2020-04-30) Tomhave, Benjamin; Molinari, Eric; Steinhoff, Forrest; Gale, LeslieOver the past decades there has been a steady shift in expectations in the United States surrounding the community’s role in public transportation projects of all types. Several decades ago, decisions about public transit projects were made exclusively by technical planners. Public input into these decisions was not considered necessary, much less desirable. Today, the community expects to play a much more central role in the decision-making surrounding these projects than in the past. The most successful public transit agencies have come to rely on community participation to ensure that their projects make a positive contribution to the public good. Metro Transit has seen this steady shift and has made great strides in e!ectively incorporating public participation into many of its large-scale projects like Bus Rail Transit (BRT) and Light Rail Transit (LRT). When it comes to smaller scale transit advantage projects, like the creation of bus lanes and bus stop consolidation, Metro Transit believes that there is room for improvement. The problem is that public engagement on these transit advantage projects comes mainly from individuals who are in opposition to the project. Opposition tends to come from individuals who live or work close to where a project is being implemented and feel they are negatively impacted. Receiving this negative feedback is important, but it is equally important to receive feedback from stakeholders that may have a di!erent opinion about the project, but may not be as highly motivated to provide this feedback.Item Refined Choice Set Generation and The Investigation of Multi-Criterion Transit Route Choice Behavior(2019-12) Tomhave, BenjaminTransit route choice models play a crucial role in determining how passengers interact with the transportation system. The resulting route choice parameters are used to calibrate demand forecasting models to determine how system alterations and modifications affect transit ridership on a route-level basis. Despite the importance of route choice calibration, no known model is available that is more recent than 2004. In order to understand current passengers' interaction with the modern-day transit system, a new method for transit route choice estimation is proposed in which a forward label-setting schedule-based multi-criterion shortest path algorithm is combined with an iterative trip elimination methodology. This new methodology yields high quality transit path choice sets with detailed temporal information on all types of network links (in-vehicle, walking, and waiting). This increased specificity, in turn, heightens the validity and accuracy of the route choice model. Passenger information is sampled from a transit on-board survey containing origin-destination locations, demographic details, and trip-specific attributes. A multinomial logit model with stop-level path size correction term is estimated yielding a 67\% match rate between the path with the highest estimated likelihood and the surveyed (taken) transit path. Furthermore, a transfer penalty of 28.8 minutes was estimated and coefficients' marginal rates of substitution are in close alignment to similar values in the literature for both walking and waiting time. Express routes were found to have a statistically significant negative impact on path utility for the lowest income thresholds while transitways (light rail, bus rapid transit, or commuter rail) had a positive associated perception for the highest household income class. Thus, support is found for the claim that transitways can potentially attract higher-income ``choice'' riders to the transit network. The merits and potential future applications of the new route choice model are analyzed through a case study investigating the impact of the A Line arterial bus rapid transit route on surrounding system ridership. The results of this research can be used to improve ridership projections and highlight areas for policy improvements that could have the largest impact on retaining and attracting new passengers to the transit system.