Improving ADA Paratransit Demand Estimation: Regional Modeling (2012)

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T R A N S I T C O O P E R A T I V E R E S E A R C H P R O G R A M TCRP REPORT 158 TRANSPORTAT ION RESEARCH BOARD WASHINGTON, D.C. 2012 www.TRB.org Research sponsored by the Federal Transit Administration in cooperation with the Transit Development Corporation Subscriber Categories Public Transportation Improving ADA Paratransit Demand Estimation: Regional Modeling Mark Bradley Mark Bradley research and consulting Santa Barbara, CA David Koffman nelson\nygaard consulting associates San Francisco, CA

TCRP REPORT 158 Project B-28A ISSN 1073-4872 ISBN 978-0-309-25838-8 Library of Congress Control Number 2012942249 © 2012 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. COPYRIGHT INFORMATION Authors herein are responsible for the authenticity of their materials and for obtaining written permissions from publishers or persons who own the copyright to any previously published or copyrighted material used herein. Cooperative Research Programs (CRP) grants permission to reproduce material in this publication for classroom and not-for-profit purposes. Permission is given with the understanding that none of the material will be used to imply TRB, AASHTO, FAA, FHWA, FMCSA, FTA, or Transit Development Corporation endorsement of a particular product, method, or practice. It is expected that those reproducing the material in this document for educational and not-for-profit uses will give appropriate acknowledgment of the source of any reprinted or reproduced material. For other uses of the material, request permission from CRP. NOTICE The project that is the subject of this report was a part of the Transit Cooperative Research Program, conducted by the Transportation Research Board with the approval of the Governing Board of the National Research Council. The members of the technical panel selected to monitor this project and to review this report were chosen for their special competencies and with regard for appropriate balance. The report was reviewed by the technical panel and accepted for publication according to procedures established and overseen by the Transportation Research Board and approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council. The opinions and conclusions expressed or implied in this report are those of the researchers who performed the research and are not necessarily those of the Transportation Research Board, the National Research Council, or the program sponsors. The Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, the National Research Council, and the sponsors of the Transit Cooperative Research Program do not endorse products or manufacturers. Trade or manufacturers’ names appear herein solely because they are considered essential to the object of the report. TRANSIT COOPERATIVE RESEARCH PROGRAM The nation’s growth and the need to meet mobility, environmental, and energy objectives place demands on public transit systems. Current systems, some of which are old and in need of upgrading, must expand service area, increase service frequency, and improve efficiency to serve these demands. Research is necessary to solve operating problems, to adapt appropriate new technologies from other industries, and to intro- duce innovations into the transit industry. The Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) serves as one of the principal means by which the transit industry can develop innovative near-term solutions to meet demands placed on it. The need for TCRP was originally identified in TRB Special Report 213—Research for Public Transit: New Directions, published in 1987 and based on a study sponsored by the Urban Mass Transportation Administration—now the Federal Transit Admin istration (FTA). A report by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), Transportation 2000, also recognized the need for local, problem- solving research. TCRP, modeled after the longstanding and success- ful National Cooperative Highway Research Program, undertakes research and other technical activities in response to the needs of tran- sit service providers. 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Because research cannot have the desired impact if products fail to reach the intended audience, special emphasis is placed on dissemi- nating TCRP results to the intended end users of the research: tran- sit agencies, service providers, and suppliers. TRB provides a series of research reports, syntheses of transit practice, and other support- ing material developed by TCRP research. APTA will arrange for workshops, training aids, field visits, and other activities to ensure that results are implemented by urban and rural transit industry practitioners. The TCRP provides a forum where transit agencies can cooperatively address common operational problems. The TCRP results support and complement other ongoing transit research and training programs. Published reports of the TRANSIT COOPERATIVE RESEARCH PROGRAM are available from: Transportation Research Board Business Office 500 Fifth Street, NW Washington, DC 20001 and can be ordered through the Internet at http://www.national-academies.org/trb/bookstore Printed in the United States of America

The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. On the authority of the charter granted to it by the Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Ralph J. Cicerone is president of the National Academy of Sciences. The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It is autonomous in its administration and in the selection of its members, sharing with the National Academy of Sciences the responsibility for advising the federal government. The National Academy of Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting national needs, encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior achievements of engineers. Dr. Charles M. Vest is president of the National Academy of Engineering. The Institute of Medicine was established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences to secure the services of eminent members of appropriate professions in the examination of policy matters pertaining to the health of the public. The Institute acts under the responsibility given to the National Academy of Sciences by its congressional charter to be an adviser to the federal government and, on its own initiative, to identify issues of medical care, research, and education. Dr. Harvey V. Fineberg is president of the Institute of Medicine. The National Research Council was organized by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy’s purposes of furthering knowledge and advising the federal government. Functioning in accordance with general policies determined by the Academy, the Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. The Council is administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Ralph J. Cicerone and Dr. Charles M. Vest are chair and vice chair, respectively, of the National Research Council. The Transportation Research Board is one of six major divisions of the National Research Council. The mission of the Transporta- tion Research Board is to provide leadership in transportation innovation and progress through research and information exchange, conducted within a setting that is objective, interdisciplinary, and multimodal. The Board’s varied activities annually engage about 7,000 engineers, scientists, and other transportation researchers and practitioners from the public and private sectors and academia, all of whom contribute their expertise in the public interest. The program is supported by state transportation departments, federal agencies including the component administrations of the U.S. Department of Transportation, and other organizations and individu- als interested in the development of transportation. www.TRB.org www.national-academies.org

C O O P E R A T I V E R E S E A R C H P R O G R A M S AUTHOR ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The research that produced this report was performed under TCRP Project B-28A. David Koffman of Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associates was the Principal Investigator and co-author of the report. Mark Bradley of Mark Bradley Research and Consulting specified and estimated the models, wrote programs to implement the models, and wrote Chapter 3 of the report and the regional model documentation. David Chia of Planners Collaborative participated in the process of selecting candidate transit systems for the modeling. Jeff Livingston of NuStats directed the survey effort. Staff of Dallas Area Rapid Transit and the Fort Worth Transportation Authority gave generously of their time, providing detailed data about their systems and users, facilitating mailings to potential respondents, and fielding calls from those who chose to opt out of the survey. CRP STAFF FOR TCRP REPORT 158 Christopher W. Jenks, Director, Cooperative Research Programs Crawford F. Jencks, Deputy Director, Cooperative Research Programs Dianne S. Schwager, Senior Program Officer Jeffrey L. Oser, Senior Program Assistant Eileen P. Delaney, Director of Publications Hilary Freer, Senior Editor TCRP PROJECT B-28A PANEL Field of Service Configuration J. Barry Barker, Transit Authority of River City, Louisville, KY (Chair) Thomas Adler, Resource Systems Group, Inc., White River Junction, VT Ronald L. Barnes, Steer Davies Gleave, Mesa, AZ Richard DeRock, Link Transit, Wenatchee, WA Marilyn Golden, Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, Berkeley, CA Toby Olson, Washington State Governor’s Committee on Disability Issues and Employment, Olympia, WA Erik Sabina, Denver Council of Governments, Denver, CO Russell Thatcher, TranSystems Corporation, Boston, MA William A. Woodford, Resource Systems Group, Inc., McLean, VA Jonathan Klein, FTA Liaison Eric Pihl, FHWA Liaison Pamela Boswell, APTA Liaison Jennifer A. Rosales, TRB Liaison

TCRP Report 158: Improving ADA Paratransit Demand Estimation: Regional Modeling pro- vides a sketch planning model and regional models to (1) improve the ability of metropolitan planning organizations and transit operators to estimate the probable future demand for ADA complementary paratransit service; and (2) predict travel by ADA paratransit-eligible individu- als on all modes, not just ADA paratransit. All model parameters and coefficients are contained in this report and a fully implemented version is available on the enclosed CD-ROM. This report will be of interest to regional, state, and federal agencies that oversee, plan, or finance public transportation; public transportation systems that provide ADA complementary paratransit services; and advocates for people with disabilities. The models presented in TCRP Report 158 advance the state of the art in understand- ing travel by people with disabilities, in particular travel via ADA paratransit. The research demonstrates how the travel of people with disabilities can be explicitly treated in regional travel demand models. Both models developed in this research build on the research presented in TCRP Report 119: Improving ADA Complementary Paratransit Demand Estimation and permit more detailed forecasts and deeper understanding of the travel behavior of ADA paratransit-eligible people. • A sketch planning model allows planners to enter a small number of variables by means of a spreadsheet interface and explore how these variables affect predicted trip-making on ADA paratransit and other modes in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. • A regional planning model (actually a system of multiple models) produces forecasts of travel by ADA paratransit-eligible people, with detail about numbers of trips by mode (ADA paratransit, other specialized service, car passenger, car driver, scheduled transit, and walk/wheelchair), by trip purpose, and by destination. The models presented in this report are based on analysis of a survey of 800 users of ADA paratransit service operated by Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) and the Fort Worth Trans- portation Authority (FWTA), combined with the regional travel demand model of the North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG) and Census tract data for the same area. The survey obtained detailed information about actual trips made by ADA paratransit riders— not just on ADA paratransit but also on other specialized services, by private car as a passenger or driver, on scheduled transit, and walking or going by wheelchair. The resulting models explain observed ADA paratransit trip-making on the basis of socio-economic data (e.g., income, age distribution, and household size), travel times, and jobs of various types. F O R E W O R D By Dianne S. Schwager Staff Officer Transportation Research Board

1 Chapter 1 Summary 1 Previous Work—Phase I 2 Phase II Research 3 Evidence about Planning and Policy Issues 8 Further Research and Development 10 Chapter 2 Description of the Research 10 Regional Travel Demand Models 12 Adapting Travel Demand Models for ADA Paratransit 17 Site Selection 17 Data Collection 26 Chapter 3 The ADA Paratransit Demand Models 26 Overview of the Model Components 29 Details of the Aggregate Models 36 Details of the Disaggregate Models 51 Model Calibration 53 Sensitivity Tests 56 Chapter 4 ADA Paratransit Riders and Travel in Dallas-Ft. Worth 56 Personal and Household Characteristics 56 Trip-Making Characteristics 62 Abbreviations and Acronyms 63 Appendix A Using the ADA Paratransit Travel Models 63 Program Structure: ADA Paratransit Demand Model Simulation 65 Transferring the Models to Other Regions 65 Transferring the Model Application to Other Software Systems 67 Using the Sketch Planning Model in Excel 75 Appendix B File Specifications 75 Example User Control Input File 76 Output Files C O N T E N T S Note: Many of the photographs, figures, and tables in this report have been converted from color to grayscale for printing. The electronic version of the report (posted on the Web at www.trb.org) retains the color versions.