| Considerable effort is being expended by transit agencies to implement advanced communications and transportation technologies capable of improving transit service reliability. Improvements in transit service reliability will produce benefits for both passengers and operators. Routes characterized by unreliable service may have difficulty attracting new riders or suffer patronage declines over time. Increased wait times at stops result in higher travel costs, which ultimately influence mode choice decisions. Transit systems with poor service quality require additional fiscal resources because of higher operating and capital costs. For both transit providers and passengers, the primary issue is that there are monetary costs associated with unreliable service.; This research uses archived Tri-Met Bus Dispatch System data relating to bus transit performance and passenger activity, along with socioeconomic and land use information to analyze transit service reliability and passenger demand at the time point (route-segment) level of analysis. Observations refer to individual trips summarized over 19 days for 5 radial and 2 crosstown routes. The sample was stratified by route typology and time period, with the radial peak period models further stratified by direction. In order to more closely approximate the experience of passengers, the bus performance variable is differentiated according to time period of operation.; The findings of the transit service reliability models suggest that efforts to control delay at early points along a route will produce benefits to passengers in the form of more reliable service. Factors found to contribute to delay variation include the amount of delay variation at the previous time point, passenger demand variation, link speed variation, and distance. The findings of the transit patronage models suggest that socioeconomic and land use characteristics are more important determinants of demand than factors that are directly under the control of the transit agency. |
