Understanding the FTA

Today we have a guest post from Tom Rubin.

Dane County, Wisconsin has formed a Transport 2020 task force that is trying to obtain federal funding for a commuter-rail line in Madison. During a recent meeting, a consultant “reviewed the FTA’s recent decision to include “perceived” rail advantages into ridership forecasting and modeling. This allows forecasters to quantify the quality of service for rail travel time, rail headways, and the attractiveness of rail, and include that in the ridership model.”

The problem is, this is not what the FTA actually said.

Now, before getting into the details, let me explain a bit as to what is going on here. Modeling of ridership, and what is now known as “user benefits” (greatly simplifying: travel time savings) is done through various large and complex transportation models. One of the key factors that go on in the model is evaluating transit options by time — people tend to prefer the transportation mode that takes them the least time. But some kinds of time are more important than others. For example, it is well known that people regard that time spent standing still as more important than time spent in motion. If you stand at a bus or train stopfor ten minutes, this may seem like 25 minutes to you, and the transportation model decision-making logic will treat it as such.

These types of factors are commonly called constants in transportation-model-speak.

Now, page 30911 in that Federal Register notice, bottom of the first column, “b. Mode-Specific Effect,” states:

“FTA adopts as final its proposal to allow project sponsors that seek to introduce a new transit mode to an area to claim credits implemented through what is commonly called a mode-specific constant for the user benefits caused by attributes of that mode beyond the travel time and cost measures currently available in the local travel model.”

For many years, rail proponents have claimed that transit riders have a preference for rail over bus. It is hard to argue that more people would prefer a light-rail train that goes as fast as 55 mph and stops only once per mile than a local bus that stops every other block, never goes over 30 mph, and averages only 12 mph. Now, this speed/travel time advantage is already in the models — note the reference to the “travel time” in the last phrase of the above. In other words, if you had a bus (or even a rickshaw) that went as fast as the light rail, it would also have higher ridership than the local bus.

But, rail proponents say, rail has other advantages such as a smoother ride than buses, and this attracts more riders. This may be true, but the question is, how do we measure it and how much difference does it make? If it is not that big a factor, we can just ignore it.

Beyond the ride, rail proponents say that people like rail and there are a lot of people who will ride a train and never take a bus. This is what one might refer to as a “pure” modal preference, one that has nothing to do with the actual operating characteristics of the modes such as speed, fare, or frequency of service. In fact, for many years, it was common to build such a preference for rail into transportation models.
They are recommended medications which they need to have the sildenafil india online http://regencygrandenursing.com/long-term-care/diabetes-care money to pay for it. viagra 50 mg It is termed as Kamagra and other names. Run any of the generic viagra canadian pills for the shorter period of time. It will also provide negative effects if used regularly taken for a long term. cialis cost
Then, about six years ago, the Federal Transit Administration said, no, we are not going to let you do that any more unless you document why you think it exists. If you have done research on a rail line, or any other mode, in your service area and that shows that there is preference for that mode, then show us the study and, if we find it passes the smell test, then you can build your modal preference into your model.

Note that the key phrase in the above is: “in your service area.” This meant that, if there is not currently a rail line operating in your area, you cannot use any different constants for it than you use for what you now have (which usually meant bus).

Rail proponents went nuts and have been trying for years to get FTA to allow them to use modal preference constants in areas that have no rail service. In this Federal Register notice, the FTA did agree to let them use something on an interim basis.

However, the very next paragraph in the federal register states:

“This policy establishes a reasonable approach to crediting alternatives that represent new transit modes locally with the mobility benefits caused by changes in transit service characteristics that are universally omitted from current travel forecasting methods. The policy applies to both the transit guideways identified as locally preferred alternatives and to guideway-like elements of baseline alternatives used to evaluate proposed projects. The approach gives credit—and additional user benefits–based on the specific attributes of the alternative as they are perceived by travelers. FTA will assign credits for characteristics in three categories: (1) Guideway-like characteristics (equivalent to a maximum of eight minutes of travel-time savings); (2) span of good service (up to three minutes); and (3)passenger amenities (up to four minutes). Further, FTA will define a discount of up to 20 percent on the weight applied to time spent on the transit vehicle. These credits and discount are applied to the calculation of user benefits only; ridership forecasts will not be affected. This policy is effective immediately except in the case of baseline alternatives in areas that are considering expansion of existing guideway systems. The policy will apply to those alternatives beginning in May 2008 so that project sponsors have sufficient time to modify their travel forecasting procedures.”

In short, if you are proposing a guideway transit project in an area that does not have that mode, you can incorporate the specific preferences listed into the model, for purposes of determining how long the trip takes. A shorter trip time is a greater “user benefit” which raises the score of the guideway mode.

But here is the catch: the FTA never used the term “rail.” Instead, we have the term, “guideway.” All rail systems are guideway transit systems — but so is bus-rapid transit where it has its own right-of-way.

This means that, if they use a constant to make rail seem better, they have to use exactly the same constant for bus-rapid transit.

If you want to get deeper into how transportation modeling works, a professor at the University of Wisconsin (Milwaukee) wrote this primer on such models. It is about a dozen years old and doesn’t have all the fanciest new stuff, but it covers the basics very well.

Tom Rubin is an accountant who has audited the books of many of the nation’s largest transit agencies and knows where the bodies are buried.