JTAs Successful Ridership Turnaround

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JTAs Successful Ridership Turnaround

• FTPN Technology Planning Tools
• January 21, 2004 Workshop

JTA Service Planning January 21, 2004
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JTA Transit System Where We Are

• Transit is multi-modal.
• Family of JTA Services includes
• Fixed-Route
• Bus Lines
• Trolley
• Skyway
• Paratransit
• Connexion
• RideRequest
• ChoiceRide Inter-County Van Shuttles

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JTA One System Where We Are

• Bus Line Network is completely re-designed.
• Focus is on high-demand, high-frequency
  corridors.

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JTA One System Where We Are

• And ridership measures are reflecting the
  improved performance.

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JTA Bus LinesPassengers
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JTA Bus LinesPassengers
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JTA Bus LinesPassenger Miles
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JTA Bus LinesPassenger Miles
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JTA SkywayPassengers
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JTA One System Where We Are

• Bus LinesSenior over age 60 FREEReduced
  Fare 0.25, all zonesZone 1 Base
  Fare 0.75Zone 2 Fare 1.35
• SkywayBase Fare 0.35Senior Reduced
  Fare 0.10
• PassesUnlimited ride Bus Lines, Skyway,
  RideRequestWeekly 10 Monthly 40

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Where Are Our Customers?

• Ridership origins and destinations are remarkably
  similar between JTA Connexion and JTA Bus Lines.

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JTA Bus Lines Weekday Boardings/ Alightings (for
FY2003)
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JTA Connexion Weekday Boardings (for 8/5/03)
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JTA Bus Connexion Weekday Boardings (for
8/5/03)
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JTA Success How Did we Get Here?
We declared WAR ON AIR!
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The War on Air

• Like most transit systems, JTA is plagued with
  the perception of empty buses (air).
• Mass Transportation is extremely perishable.
• Once an empty seat departs, you cannot sell it,
  and the revenue opportunity is gone.

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Wheres the Air? -- ExTRA

• ExTRA Existing Transit Route Analysis
• Detailed passenger analysis of existing route
  ridership in FY98.
• Investigated where people ride and when they
  ride.
• Knowing this, bus lines can be re-designed to
  improve efficiency or capture additional demand.

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ExTRA Information Reviewed

• Population and employment data by segment for
  1990 and projection for 2000 (provided by the MPO
  in Traffic Analysis Zone (TAZ) format).
• Ridership by segment data (Automated Passenger
  Counters, detail by specific stop).
• Ridership by time of day (Automated Passenger
  Counters).

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Wheres the Air?

• To improve the empty bus syndrome, we need to
  know where seats are available.
• Empty could be a specific trip, a specific
  route segment, or an entire route at all times of
  day.

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Wheres the Air?

• In the past, bus operators phoned in their trip
  counts at the end of the line.
• This method demonstrated the times of day a route
  was most used.
• It did not indicate which segments were busiest.

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Wheres the Air?

• Another method was manual ride checks.
• A surveyor would record where people boarded and
  alighted at each stop, for each trip.
• This method was labor intensive, and also
  required someone to compile all of the
  information into an average trip format.

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Wheres the Air? APCs.

• JTA pioneered the use of Automated Passenger
  Counters (APCs).
• APCs electronically record individual passenger
  boardings and alightings by trip.
• Data is compiled in an electronic format so it
  can be sorted and analyzed.

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APCs -- Key to the Effort

• 25 buses and eight trolleys are equipped with
  automatic passenger counters.
• APCs record time and location of bus with
  passenger boardings and alightings.

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APCs How They Work
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ExTRA Is Now Ongoing

• The Transportation Analyst assigns APC buses
  quarterly to assess every trip 3-4 times each
  quarter.
• Random assignments are also made for National
  Transit Database sampling.
• Data is compiled weekly, assimilated with farebox
  data, and passed to the Data Analyst for weekly
  reporting and storage.

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Line Performance System

• The Line Performance System (LPS) is a Service
  Planning developed and maintained database.
• Stores and integrates several sources of
  data 1. APC data 2. Farebox data 3.
  Scheduling System statistics 4. Operating cost
  data 5. TAZ population data

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LPS Data GIS

• The 1999 CUTR market research study included
  equipping Service Planning with ArcView GIS
  (geographic information system).
• Starting with APC data, LPS data is displayed on
  a map for analysis.

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LPS Data GIS

• Other data can also be integrated for further
  analysis and evaluation.
• The 2000 APC upgrade included the Tracking
  Analyst extension for GIS, allowing data to be
  played back.

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Putting the Data to Work

• Three years ago, JTAs service design efforts
  were limited by the information available.
• Today, only one barrier remains, being true
  passenger origin/destination information.
• This barrier can be overcome with external
  partnerships.
• One example is the development of the R5
  Interliner.

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Previous WS-5/SS-2 Interliner

• Implemented July 5, 1999.
• From ExTRA, streamlined WS-5 Murray Hill and SS-2
  Glynlea-UNF, and interlined to provide seamless
  service between FCCJ Kent, Downtown, and South
  campuses and UNF.

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Previous WS-5/SS-2 Interliner

• Operated 65-minute headways weekdays, 96-minute
  headways Saturdays, and no Sunday service.
• Slight decrease in ridership, 463 average
  passengers per weekday pre-interline, 446
  post-interline.

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Partnership with UNF FCCJ

• July 13, 2000, Service Planning held initial
  meeting with UNF and FCCJ representatives.
• Reviewed current ridership data (UNF just 30-40
  average weekday boardings, FCCJ 370 at South,
  Kent, and North).
• Obtained class schedules, construction plans
  (including UNF Technology Park), and UNF student
  residence locations.
• Discussed attractive transit service.

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NEW R5 Regency-FCCJ-UNF

• Working with UNF FCCJ, new line serves student
  apartments (Melrose), UNF University Center, and
  UNF Technology Park (AOL - Dec. 01) on Kernan
  Blvd.
• Serves Regency Square, for student-shopping
  activity and regional transit connections
  (Arlington, Southside).
• Continues inter-campus link with WS-5 interline.

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R5 Interliner Route Running Times

• Field analysis performed by Planner/Scheduler.
• Inventory activity centers for new passenger stop
  locations.
• Calculate running times with simulated a.m. peak,
  mid-day, and p.m. peak runs.
• Add recovery time to reach desired cycle time.

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R5 Interliner Schedule

• Scheduling Coordinator applies field analysis to
  G/Sched scheduling runcutting software (to be
  replaced with Hastus).
• Uses APC ridership per trip data and class
  schedules to adjust trips.
• Balance into a clockface headway.

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R5 Interliner Runcut

• Final schedule integrated into quarterly runcut.
• G/Sched (since replaced with Hastus) optimizes
  pieces of work to maximize pay to platform time
  ratio, based on set number of runs system-wide.
• Minimize spread time, overtime.

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R55 Interliner Result

• Weekday schedules extended until 1046 p.m. from
  UNF to meet night class needs.
• Sunday service added to serve growing on-campus
  population (2,100 in fall 2001).
• Weekday 60-minute clockface schedule.
• Saturday Sunday 90-minute headways.
• Overall ridership up by 26 percent in March, 35
  percent in April.
• Discussions with UNF FCCJ on transit fee.

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R5 Interliner Result

• Later expanded service to every 30 minutes
  weekdays, 60 minutes Saturdays and Sundays.
• Ridership nearly doubled from approximately 600
  passengers per weekday to 1,200.
• Load factor improved to 18 percent, one of top 10
  lines in JTA system.
• Core of route now part of R Regency-Riverside
  corridor with R1, the second best performing line
  in the system with a 25 percent load factor.

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Wheres the Air? Industry Measures

• The transit industry has relied on two key ratios
  to measure the productivity of a route.
• Passengers/Hour
• Passengers/Mile

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Wheres the Air? Passengers/Hour

• The number of passengers (per the Farebox)
  divided by the platform or scheduled hours
  operated.
• Dependent on route length and speed.
• In FY00 JTAs system-wide passengers/hour was 15.
• Good measure to compare efficiency of modes.

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Wheres the Air? Passengers/Mile

• The number of passengers (per the Farebox)
  divided by the scheduled miles operated.
• Dependent on route length and speed.
• In FY00 JTAs system-wide passengers/mile was
  1.12.
• Is an efficiency measure.
• Does not address number of seats occupied.

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Wheres the Air?Load Factor

• Neither of the traditional transit measures
  provides, in a straightforward manner, how full
  the buses are.
• Passengers per Trip can be used, but does not
  reflect how far along a route passengers are
  carried (3 miles occupied, 7 miles empty).
• One key measure can provide an easy snapshot of
  How full is the bus?

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Load Factor
Passenger Miles Load Factor Seat
Miles
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Load Factor

• It is the amount of time that the total available
  seats provided are occupied by passengers.
• Load Factor is the key measure for intercity mass
  transportation providers, such as airlines.
• Mass Transit traditionally has not used load
  factor since it has not had passenger miles
  available per route.

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Load Factor Passenger Miles
Passenger Miles Passengers X Trip
Length
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Load Factor Passenger Miles

• 10 passenger miles 1 passenger traveling 10
  milesOR
• 10 passenger miles 10 passengers traveling 1
  mile

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Load Factor Passenger Miles

• APCs provide a average trip length per passenger,
  per line.
• This measure has been used in the past for a
  system-wide average for National Transit Database
  reporting.
• The total number of passengers is provided
  through the farebox.

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Load Factor Seat Miles
Seat Miles Seats/Bus (43) X No. of
Miles
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Load Factor Seat Miles

• Seat miles are our basic unit of production.
• A unit of production is what we make. For
  instance, a bus is the basic unit of production
  for Novabus.
• A seat alone is not, since we do not sell it
  sitting still. We sell a seat in motion.
• We measure motion by the distance traveled, or
  miles.

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Load Factor

• Load Factor tells us how full our buses are over
  the entire length of their trips.
• A load factor of 1.00 would mean all of the
  available seats are occupied by passengers for
  the entire length of every trip.
• JTA bus lines had a 16 percent overall load
  factor for FY2000.

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Whats an Acceptable Load Factor for JTA?

• Airlines use break-even load factor as
  performance base. Since JTA is not primarily
  driven by profit, break-even load factor is far
  above what is acceptable.
• The fixed-route system is primarily hub and
  spoke. This design results in peak-direction
  traffic. A 0.50 load factor would mean all
  seats are occupied in the primary travel
  direction.

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Prioritizing Changes by Load Factor

• Since we desire to continuously improve the
  passenger loads over the entire system, basing
  acceptable on the average load factor will
  provide a moving target.
• Bus lines can be divided into four categories,
  based on load factor performance.

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Line Performance Categories

• High Performing Lines (0.20 and above)Success to
  duplicate.
• Promotion Needed Lines (0.15 - 0.20)Ridership is
  well distributed between segments and times of
  day. Build demand with market promotions.
• Re-Design Lines (0.10 - 0.14)Conduct detailed
  analysis of segment and time-of-day ridership.
  Consider frequency and routing adjustments.
• Poor Performing Lines (below 0.10)Consider
  discontinuance if all other efforts have failed.

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War on Air Continuing Process
Schedules Effective
Implementation
Data Collected Analyzed
Quarterly Service Change Staff Meeting
Proposals for Improvement
Public/Stakeholder Comment
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Last Thoughts on the War

• Load factor management assumes that there is a
  base demand.
• Overall, frequency (or lack thereof) is an
  ongoing problem sited by JTA customers.
• Only 66 percent of JTA bus lines currently meet
  30-minute peak-hour headway policy.
• A core network and market must be retained if
  transit can grow.