01623313

Component

https://doi.org/10.3141/2647-03

The San Pablo, California, Rapid bus service was planned 17 years ago and was implemented 13 years ago. The Rapid service, which did not include exclusive lanes, was an upgrade of previous limited-stop bus service linking the East Bay communities of San Pablo, Richmond, El Cerrito, Albany, Berkeley, Emeryville, and Oakland. The 13 years of service provide some lessons for other communities that are considering moderate (or less than full) service upgrades to bus rapid transit. The service was quick to implement and low in cost, but it has not provided the anticipated ridership benefits. The upgrades apparently were not significant enough to attract ridership increases. The transit signal priority element was not well maintained and thus has not provided the desired travel time and reliability benefits. AC Transit—which operates the service—and the corridor communities are currently reexamining further upgrades to the service. This Rapid service is well used, but more pronounced improvements are needed to fulfill ridership potential in the corridor. The lessons learned are that minor upgrades can be easily implemented, but noticeable changes are required to achieve significant ridership gains.

01624542

17-01038

English

pp 17–25

2017

Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board

9780309442121

Digital/other

Figures (1) ; References (3)

Bus rapid transit; Bus transit operations; Quality of service; Transportation corridors; Transportation planning

San Pablo (California)

Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation

PRP, TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Dec 8 2016 10:17AM

• Calculating Optimal School Bus Routing and Its Impact on Safety and the Environment
• Calibration of the Platoon Dispersion Model by Considering the Impact of the Percentage of Buses at Signalized Intersections
• Comparing Chinese and Non-Chinese Bus Rapid Transit Systems: Evidence from Evaluating Global Systems on the Basis of Bus Rapid Transit Design Indicators
• Convex Fuel Consumption Model for Diesel and Hybrid Buses
• Decision-Making Framework to Allocate Real-Time Passenger Information Signs at Bus Stops: Model Application in Athens, Greece
• Designing Limited-Stop Transit Service with Fixed Fleet Size in Peak Hours by Exploiting Transit Data
• Does Combining Transit Signal Priority with Dedicated Bus Lanes or Queue Jump Lanes at Multiple Intersections Create Multiplier Effects?
• Effect of Regional Characteristics on Injury Severity in Local Bus Crashes: Use of Hierarchical Ordered Model
• Estimating Ridership of Rural Demand–Response Transit Services for the General Public
• Identifying the Bias: Evaluating Effectiveness of Automatic Data Collection Methods in Estimating Details of Bus Dwell Time
• Measuring the Determinants of Bus Dwell Time: New Insights and Potential Biases
• Modeling Bus Service Time for a Curbside Stop
• Optimal Deployment of Dynamic Wireless Charging Facilities for an Electric Bus System
• Real-Time Bus-Holding Control Strategy to Reduce Passenger Waiting Time
• Real-Time Public Transport Operations: Library of Control Strategies
• South Eastern Busway Network in Brisbane, Australia: Value of the Network Effect