01127219

Component

The purpose of this research is to determine whether different billing methods impact the performance of community transportation systems not using automated scheduling software. A scheduler aware of the dominant billing method on a run can create a schedule that positively affects the performance and income of their community transportation system by determining the assigned run, the miles each passenger rides, and the order of pickups and drop offs. The hypothesis is that billing methods have an impact on productivity with the expectation that runs dominated by flat rate billing will have better performance statistics than revenue mile billing, which will outperform service mile billing. This analysis looked at run level data for 10 North Carolina community transportation systems to determine how runs with a majority of clients assigned to one billing method perform compared to the average performance of the transportation systems. The analysis proves the hypothesis, with flat rate billing significantly outperforming the average performance of transportation systems using flat rate billing. Service mile billing has the weakest performance, with mixed billing methods and revenue mile billing in the middle, close to the average performance. This research proves that community transportation systems primarily concerned with performance should not use service mile billing.

01120148

09-2010

English

9p

2009

Transportation Research Board 88th Annual Meeting

DVD

Figures (2) ; References (3) ; Tables (4)

Billing; Communities; Local transportation; Operating revenues; Productivity; Public transit; Rates; Schedules and scheduling

Community transportation

North Carolina

Economics; Operations and Traffic Management; Public Transportation; I10: Economics and Administration; I73: Traffic Control

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2009 Paper #09-2010

TRIS, TRB

Jan 30 2009 6:19PM