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Title:

Do Seasons Really Matter in Transit Ridership Profiles and Activities? A Closer Look at Seasonal Differences in Travel Patterns from the Long Island Rail Road Origin and Destination Survey

Accession Number:

01593548

Record Type:

Component

Abstract:

Transportation agencies traditionally limit data collection efforts to the spring and fall months with the expectation that these two seasons are best for measuring typical ridership patterns. Although transit ridership has reached an all-time high recently, re-testing of this seasonal assumption has only been conducted sporadically, with some studies several decades old. The time has come to re-evaluate whether the strict fall/spring protocols are still appropriate. From September 2012 through May 2014, a Customer Origin and Destination Survey was conducted for the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR), one of the nation’s largest commuter rail systems. There was some downtime, mostly limited to summer months and during major holiday periods, but a large portion of this effort included survey data collection during the winter season. This presents the opportunity to compare “typical” and “atypical” fall/spring riders with those of winter. Key measures from the survey have been selected and analyzed for two season groupings—fall/spring and winter. Several logistic regression models were developed using trip purpose, daypart traveled, and demographics with inconclusive results. However, a spatial analysis of destinations in Manhattan yielded significant geographic hot spots of customer’s trip ends, and standard deviational ellipses suggest that travel destinations differ in the winter compared to fall and spring. The traditional practice of avoiding winter transit rider surveying may still be warranted. However, further research is recommended with changes in specific protocols to take a closer look at trip purpose, daypart and demographic effects involved in seasonal travel via an experimental design.

Supplemental Notes:

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ABJ30 Standing Committee on Urban Transportation Data and Information Systems.

Monograph Accession #:

01584066

Report/Paper Numbers:

16-3935

Language:

English

Corporate Authors:

Transportation Research Board

500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001 United States

Authors:

Silver, Dan
Seltzer, Julia
Hsieh, Stan
Seidl, Dara
Rhindress, Mindy

Pagination:

19p

Publication Date:

2016

Conference:

Transportation Research Board 95th Annual Meeting

Location: Washington DC, United States
Date: 2016-1-10 to 2016-1-14
Sponsors: Transportation Research Board

Media Type:

Digital/other

Features:

Figures; Maps; References; Tables

Identifier Terms:

Long Island Rail Road

Geographic Terms:

Manhattan (New York, New York)

Subject Areas:

Passenger Transportation; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation

Source Data:

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2016 Paper #16-3935

Files:

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Created Date:

Jan 12 2016 5:43PM