The Relationship Between Transit Asset Condition and Service Quality (2018)

Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

D-1 Project Workshop Summary This appendix describes the workshop held on Wednesday, August 30, at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In attendance were 24 industry participants, in addition to members of the research team. Table D-1 lists the workshop participants. The objective of the workshop was to introduce participants to the measure of Effective Jour- ney Time (EJT) and walk participants through the guidance on analytical approaches that agen- cies can use in determining the benefits that improvements to asset condition have on transit service quality. Participants were also given a demonstration of the spreadsheet tool developed for calculating EJT and had the opportunity to provide feedback to the research team on the guidance and spreadsheet tool. Table D-2 provides the agenda for the workshop. The materials presented at the workshop are provided in Appendix E. The exercises used in the workshop were incorporated into Chapter 6. Major outcomes of the workshop were as follows: • Participants found the basic concept of the research, relating asset condition to service qual- ity using the measure of EJT, to be readily comprehensible and potentially useful for helping “make the case” for investing in needs state of good repair activities. Issues raised in reviewing the research included the following: – Regarding safety and security, the formal measures may not relate directly to customer per- ceptions. For instance, customers may not think in terms of crash rates, but may find that installing on-board cameras enhances their perceptions of safety and security. – One aspect of service quality is the availability of new technology, such as mobile ticketing and wireless access. This is particularly important for choice riders. – Some workshop participants emphasized that vehicle appearance is extremely important to their passengers. A vehicle that appears old or poorly maintained can be deleterious to customer perceptions. Workshop participants discussed various approaches to enhancing customer perceptions of vehicle and station conditions. – Reliability is important and growing more so as more passengers have access to real-time data showing vehicle locations. – Ideally, the guidance would address how to use the EJT framework for infrequent service as well as frequent service. – The framework does not define an optimal or target EJT. However, transit agencies may wish to establish this for evaluating service. – Transit agencies need assistance communicating the effects of poor asset condition and changes in service quality. • Participants provided comments and suggested a range of revisions to the spreadsheet tools and exercises. These have been incorporated into the materials presented in Chapter 6. A P P E N D I X D

D-2 The Relationship Between Transit Asset Condition and Service Quality Table D-2. Workshop agenda. Time Topic 8:00 – 8:15 Welcome and Introductions 8:15 – 8:30 TCRP Project E-11 Objectives 8:30 – 8:45 Framework for Relating Asset Condition and Service Quality 8:45 – 9:15 Calculation Guidance 9:15 – 9:45 Walk-Through of the Effective Journey Time (EJT) Calculator 9:45 – 10:00 Break 10:00 – 11:00 Small Group Exercise: Using the EJT Calculator 11:00 – 11:45 Discussion and Feedback 11:45 – 12:00 Wrap-Up and Next Steps Name Organization Steve Berrang New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority Terry Brown Virginia Department of Rail & Public Transport Heather Byers Ohio DOT Chi Chow Golden Gate Transit Louis Cripps Regional Transit District - Denver Paul Diiorio RI Public Transit Michelle Felic MACS Transit and VanTran Terry Ferguson Athens Transit Russell Glynn US DOT Don Holmes STAR Metro Charles Hopper King County Metro Kristyl Horton Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) David Huffaker Sound Transit Rhonda Jalbert Valley Regional Transit, ID Shawnessy Leon Alaska Railroad Corp Terry Lowe STAR Metro Carl Montgomery City of Phoenix Eric Oparko Sacramento Regional Transit District Wendy Platanitis Valley Metro Jorge Pubillones CobbLinc Ajay Singip King County Metro Darryl Spencer Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) Bonnie Todd Sound Transit Laura Zale Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) Table D-1. Workshop participants.