Toolkit for Estimating Demand for Rural Intercity Bus Services (2011)

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7The purpose of this final report is to summarize the work performed on the project and to lay out considerations that were addressed in the project. The major question was whether there was sufficient ridership data available on rural intercity bus services to allow for the development of models or tools to be used by planners and bus operators in the development of rural intercity services. As will be seen, the data collection effort identified 133 rural intercity services. The survey effort collected or developed basic service characteristics for these services, to allow for the use of fare levels, frequency, and route length in developing models or tools. In addition, the stops are known, which allowed the study team to develop popula- tion figures for each of the routes. It is likely that most of the Section 5311(f) of Title 49 United State Code–funded rural intercity operating projects for which ridership data is available (not including those that are so recently started that there is no data yet available, and not including those that were dis- continued long enough ago that the data is missing) were identified and included. This set of cases allowed for continua- tion of the project, and the potential use of statistical techniques on either the entire data set or major subsets of the data. The service data allowed the study team to initiate efforts to complete a data matrix that included not only the basic rider- ship data (the dependent variable) but also the service char- acteristics, a classification of the service type, the presence or absence of key potential traffic generators on a route (such as colleges, military bases, etc.), the population served, the length of the route, etc. The services were initially classified into three major group- ings in this report, based on the commonality of the service characteristics and the providers. One type is initially defined “standard” intercity bus service (n = 56), provided by the private carriers that are members of the National Bus Traffic Association (NBTA), with interline tickets and common information sources. Another type was initially defined as “regional private” rural intercity services, which are provided by smaller regional private carriers that are not interlined with the national intercity network (n = 16). Finally, the third group in the initial classification consisted of the rural inter- city services operated by rural (and a few urban) public transit operators. These services have a high degree of variance in terms of their service characteristics and fares (n = 63). As will be seen, the degree to which the routes providing “standard” intercity bus service share common characteristics made it more likely that a statistically valid model could be calibrated to predict ridership for this type of service. This was more of a problem for the “regional private” and “rural public” classes, because the service parameters varied a great deal. Following the interim report, the TCRP B-37 panel recommended a reclassification of the overall data set into two groups—one essentially the same as the intercity bus classification initially developed, and the other consisting of the routes from the other two categories that could be defined as primarily intercity in nature. The model development efforts began with the completion of the ridership data collection on the remaining known routes and services and the completion of the development of the other variables for all services. While this was being under- taken, the basic relationships were identified by developing basic trip rates (trips per population) for all services and for each of the classifications. Scattergrams and correlation analysis allowed for the development of basic relationships between the variables, and the development of models or techniques proceeded from that point. The goal remained to elicit as much useful information as possible from the data that was collected and to present that data in such a way that a potential user could have some basis for projecting the ridership on a pro- posed rural intercity service. Background The national intercity bus network has been contracting in coverage for many years, but a substantial shift away from services in rural areas began with the passage of the Bus C H A P T E R 1 Introduction

Regulatory Reform Act in 1982. The loss of rural services has resulted not only from the abandonment of entire routes but also from the restructuring of routes into non-stop services connecting only larger urbanized areas. Following the loss of substantial amounts of rural intercity bus service subsequent to regulatory reform, there was a number of proposals and policy studies addressing rural intercity bus service, and a number of states began their own state-funded intercity bus programs. During these years there were several efforts to develop models or tools that could assist states, transit operators, and bus firms in the estimation of intercity bus demand. Subsequently the Intermodal Surface Transportation Effi- ciency Act of 1991, Pub. L. 102-240 Stat. 1914 (also known as ISTEA), created the Section 18(i) (of the Federal Transit Act) program assistance for rural intercity services, offering operat- ing, capital, and administrative funding to the states for use in maintaining or developing rural intercity services. This pro- gram was subsequently codified as Section 5311(f) of Title 49. The availability of this funding and the state-funded programs in several states led to several additional efforts to develop tools of analysis that could be used to determine the potential rider- ship and revenue of proposed rural intercity services. However, in 2007, there were several significant factors that called for an effort to develop a new understanding of rural intercity travel demand and to develop planning tools that can be used to assess proposals for such service. One factor is that the most recent reauthorization of the Section 5311(f) program in the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Trans- portation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users, Pub. L. 109-59, 119 Stat. 1144 (2005) (also known as SAFETEA-LU) requires that states intending to certify that there are no unmet inter- city needs (which allows the funding to revert to the overall Section 5311 program) must conduct a consultation process with the intercity bus providers and examine needs in a more formal way prior to any determination of unmet need. A second factor calling for a new look at planning tools was the increase in authorized Section 5311(f) funding over the period covered by SAFETEA-LU, which will combine with the consultation requirement to cause many state depart- ments of transportation to examine rural intercity services more completely. A third significant factor was the restructuring of intercity bus services by Greyhound Lines. Greyhound is the only remaining nationwide provider of intercity bus service and during 2004–2006 it substantially restructured its network. This restructuring resulted in a further shift of intercity bus services away from rural routes to services that primarily link major cities and urbanized areas. Greyhound, and other pri- vate intercity carriers, are looking for more rural intercity service to be provided by rural transit operators. Finally, a more recent development that may make provision of rural intercity service more feasible and attractive to rural operators is the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) approval of a proposal to use the value of capital employed in providing unsubsidized trunk-line service as a match for Section 5311(f) operating funds that are used to provide feeder services to that trunk line. This change means that rural operators are not faced with the burden of finding the 50 percent of the net operating deficit previously required as local match and has greatly increased the interest in using Section 5311(f) funds for operations. Initially implemented as a “Pilot Project” in FY 2007 and FY 2008 [Formula Grants and Other than Urbanized Programs, 72 Fed. Reg. 9062, 9072 (February 28, 2007)], it was extended through FY 2010 [75 Fed. Reg. 7047, 7059 (February 16, 2010)]. As a consequence of these factors, rural operators and the state transportation departments that provide funding will be very interested in knowing which potential rural intercity feeder markets make sense, based on the projected ridership and revenue. However, almost all the tools available to esti- mate rural intercity bus demand were developed to predict the ridership on Greyhound-type traditional intercity bus service and were calibrated with data from the intercity bus companies—so there is a need to examine the ridership on the rural intercity feeders operated by rural transit providers. Currently there is no demand model, rule of thumb, or sim- ilar tool that is based on recent experiences to assist in deter- mining the likely intercity-related ridership and the impact of different arrangements on the potential demand. Most basically, a way to estimate intercity trip demand from rural areas to larger cities is needed to help in the design of projects that will link rural areas with major urban areas and the national intercity network. The level of demand obviously varies with population, and probably with frequency and service design, and is a major consideration in service design issues. Objectives of the Research Project The objective of this research project was to develop a sketch-planning guide and supporting tools that could be used by state transportation department program managers and both rural public and private intercity bus service providers to forecast demand for rural intercity bus services. The research approach accomplished this by: • Conducting stakeholder interviews of federal and state officials, industry and professional associations, key inter- city carriers, consultants, and others to determine the cur- rent state of demand forecasting and to identify examples of existing rural intercity services that were contacted to obtain service descriptions and ridership data. • Conducting surveys of rural intercity projects to get details on the nature of the projects, including service character- istics, service area, ticketing and information, ridership 8

(including trends), and forecasting methods used to plan the services. • Identifying and evaluating existing rural intercity bus forecasting methods from information supplied by stake- holders, providers, and the literature. These methods were compared to the types of methods used to provide rural intercity bus service to determine their applicability and the characteristics needed for new planning guidance. • Developing a sketch-planning guide and supporting tools, data, and methodologies to enable users to forecast rural intercity bus ridership. Initially provided as a conceptual framework, these products were revised and refined fol- lowing input from the TCRP Project B-37 panel to result in a user-friendly final product. • Providing a final report and Microsoft PowerPoint presentation to document the research process and the forecasting tools and to provide a presentation that was used by TCRP, the research team, and panel members to describe the research and tools. The potential audience for this research includes state agency program officials and staff, planners, local officials, and existing and potential public and private operators and sponsors of rural intercity bus service. 9