Predicting Transit Ridership at Stop Level: Role of Service and Urban Form

Abstract

This research aims to better understand the relative and combined influence of transit service characteristics and urban form on transit ridership at the stop level. Three metropolitan regions in Oregon were included in the analysis, representing different types of communities. The authors use stop-level ridership data from 7,214 TriMet stops in the Portland region, 1,400 Lane Transit District (LTD) stops in the Eugene-Springfield and 350 Rogue Valley Transit District (RVTD) stops in Jackson County (Medford-Ashland area) as the dependent variable for regression models. Categories of independent variables tested include: (1) socio-demographics; (2) transit service characteristics (e.g. headways, hours of service, transfer stops, bus vs. light rail, etc.); (3) land use (employment, population, land use type, pedestrian destinations, etc.); and (4) transportation system (e.g. street connectivity, bike lanes, etc.). The final model results indicate that the TriMet model does a better job explaining the variation in ridership at the stop-level; the adjusted-R2 is 0.69, compared to 0.61 for the LTD model, and 0.53 for the RVTD model. Land use characteristics around transit stops do have significant effects on transit ridership, though these effects are much smaller than the effects of transit level of service. Socio-demographic characteristics seem to have a larger effect on ridership in the large urban area than small urban areas (TriMet: 24% vs. LTD and RVTD: 11%). The land use characteristics have much smaller effect in large urban area than small urban area (TriMet: 5% vs. RVTD: 18%).

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