Abstract:
Since 2013, ridership has declined for rural transit districts in Texas. In this study, the authors analyze the contributing causes of ridership loss in rural areas by looking into five years of Texas rural ridership data and analyzed datasets specific to Texas to test if nationally-identified contributing factors might be causing rural ridership loss in Texas. For this purpose, the authors performed three types of analysis; analysing the past five years of data from Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) Public Transportation Division for rural transit districts; analysing potential contributing national factors to determine whether these factors were also observed within Texas rural transit districts; and a qualitative analysis of select rural transit districts. Overall, the research effort found that there is not one single root cause that is driving down ridership year after year. Instead, there appear to be many more nuanced and subtle causes. Although the past five years (2014 to 2018) have yielded a net loss of ridership, the past two years have seen ridership increases after removing outlier transit districts. In the rapidly changing transportation environment, transit must continue to adapt to meet local needs. Despite ridership trends, transit continues to be a vital mobility option in Texas and across the country.
Supplemental Notes:
This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AP055 Standing Committee on Rural, Intercity Bus, and Specialized Transportation.
