01047636

Component

https://doi.org/10.3141/1992-02

http://scholar.google.com...mehl&publication_year=2007

As gasoline prices have risen to unprecedented levels over the past 2 years, many transit agencies have claimed that higher fuel prices have driven ridership growth. It is determined first whether such a correlation is substantiated by the available data and then, if such correlation exists, the nature of this relationship. Five U.S. cities were selected for analysis on the basis of their level of automobile orientation and the extent and variety of transit services: Atlanta, Georgia; Dallas, Texas; Los Angeles, California; San Francisco, California; and Washington, D.C. Most of the transit systems in the five cities analyzed have experienced ridership growth since early 2004. Exceptions include the Atlanta bus and heavy rail systems and the San Francisco bus systems. With the use of time series analysis, seasonal indices, and correlation coefficients, ridership trends are evaluated and compared with corresponding national fuel prices. With the exceptions of the modes cited above and the Virginia Railway Express commuter rail in Washington, D.C., the correlation between ridership and fuel prices is statistically significant for all systems. This finding indicates that fuel price increases have indeed played a role in encouraging transit use in historically automobile-oriented American cities. Finally, the empirical relationships between fuel price and transit demand are explored. Results indicate that, on average, as fuel price increases by 1%, transit demand increases on the order of 0.24%; in other words, ridership increases approximately 0.09% for each $0.01 increase in fuel price.

01077203

English

pp 11-19

2007

Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board

9780309104180

Print

Figures (8) ; References (3) ; Tables (2)

Energy resources; Fuel conservation; Fuels; Prices; Public transit; Ridership

Virginia Railway Express

Fuel prices

Atlanta (Georgia); Dallas (Texas); Los Angeles (California); San Francisco (California); Washington (District of Columbia)

Energy; Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Feb 8 2007 7:30PM

• Accuracy and Precision of the Transit Tracker System
• Another Look at FTA-Approved Sampling Plans for Fixed-Route Bus Services
• Are Smart Cards the Smart Way to Go? Examining Their Adoption by U.S. Transit Agencies
• Bursting the Bubble: Determining Transit-Oriented Development’s Walkable Limits
• City CarShare: Longer-Term Travel Demand and Car Ownership Impacts
• Emergency Evacuation Planning and Preparedness of Transit Facilities: Traffic Simulation Modeling
• Growth in Worldwide Carsharing: An International Comparison
• Maturity of Key Technologies Provides More Options for Transit and Paratransit Planners
• Quantifying Position Accuracy of Multimodal Data from Global Positioning System–Enabled Cell Phones
• System Planning for Quality Transit Projects
• Transit Ridership, Automobile Gas Prices, and World Events: New Drivers of Change?
• Use of Archived Bus Location, Dispatch, and Ridership Data for Transit Analysis
• Where Does Carsharing Work? Using Geographic Information Systems to Assess Market Potential