Federal Transit Administration's Impact on Public Transportation in the United States

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Summary: The Federal Transit Administration invests in building the capacity and improving the quality of public transportation throughout the United States of America.  Under FTA's leadership, public rail, bus, trolley, ferry, and other transit services have reached greater levels of safety, reliability, availability, and accessibility.  Come hear the highlights of FTA's impacts and participate in an interactive question/answer session and discussion on career options in public transportation!

Bio: Amy Changchien is the Director of Planning & Program Development of the Federal Transit Administration Region 10 Office in Seattle.  Ms. Changchien has been a transportation professional for over 20 years, with experience spanning from highway to transit.  In her career, she has worked on projects involving highway operations, Intelligent Transportation System, commuter rail, light rail, streetcar, ferries, and buses.  Ms. Changchien holds a bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering and a master's degree in Public Administration from University of Washington. 

Promising Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Strategies for the Transportation Sector

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The video begins at 2:46.

Promising Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Strategies for the Transportation Sector: Low Carbon Fuels, Leveraging Transit with Smart Growth, and Ports and Goods Movement Opportunities

Automated Passenger Counts on Light Rail: Validation, Sampling, and Reporting at TriMet

The video begins at 3:25.

Webinar: The Association Between Light Rail Transit, Streetcars and Bus Rapid Transit on Jobs, People and Rents

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Social Transportation Analytic Toolbox (STAT) for Transit Networks

Webinar: Social Transportation Analytic Toolbox (STAT) for Transit Networks

 

PRESENTATION ARCHIVE

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OVERVIEW

This webinar will present an open-source socio-transportation analytic toolbox (STAT) for public transit system planning. This webinar will consist of a demonstration of the STAT toolbox, for the primary purpose of getting feedback from transit agencies on the tool's usefulness. We are especially interested in hearing about any improvements that would aid transit agencies in implementing it.

The STAT toolbox was created in an effort to integrate social media and general transit feed specification (GTFS) data for transit agencies, to aid in evaluating and enhancing the performance of public transit systems. The toolbox enables the integration, analysis, and visualization of two major new open transportation data sources—social media and GTFS data—to support transit decision making. In this webinar, we will introduce how we...

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Making Urban Transport Sustainable: Comparison of Germany and the USA

The video begins at 2:16.

Abstract: Reliance on the automobile for most trips contributes to costly trends like pollution, oil dependence, congestion, and obesity. Germany and the U.S. have among the highest motorization rates in the world. Yet Germans make a four times higher share of trips by foot, bike, and public transport and drive for a 25 percent lower share of trips.

This presentation first investigates international trends in daily travel behavior with a focus on Germany and the USA. Next, the presentation examines the transport and land-use policies in Germany over the last 40 years that have encouraged more walking, bicycling, and public transport use. Using a case study of policy changes in the German city of Freiburg, the presentation concludes with policies that are transferable to car-oriented countries around the world.

Bio: Ralph Buehler is Assistant Professor of Urban Affairs & Planning and a Faculty Fellow with the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech in Alexandria, VA. Originally from Germany, most of his research has an international comparative perspective, contrasting transport and land-use policies, transport systems, and travel behavior in Western Europe and North America. His research falls into three areas: (1) the influence of transport policy, land use, socio- demographics on travel behavior; (2) bicycling, walking, and public health; and (3) public transport...

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Modeling High Speed Rail Ridership and Revenue in California: An Overview

The video begins at 4:15.

Abstract: The California High-Speed Rail Ridership and Revenue Forecasting Model is a state-of-the-practice transportation model designed to portray what future conditions might look like in California with and without a high-speed train. The model was developed by Cambridge Systematics, Inc., and took roughly two years to complete. The resulting ridership and revenue forecasts provided, and continue to provide, sound information for planning decisions for high-speed rail in California. This presentation briefly describes the underlying model that was developed to generate the ridership and revenue forecasts along with summaries of ridership forecasts from published reports.

Transit Buses as Arterial Traffic Probes: Empirical Evaluation Using Geo-Location Data

The video begins at 0:51.

Schedule-based Public Transportation Planning Model and Integration with Other Transportation Planning Models

The video begins at 0:47.

Topic: Schedule-based Public Transportation Planning Model and Integration with Other Transportation Planning Models

Speaker Hyunsoo Noh, a PhD Candidate from the University of Arizona, will discuss the integration of schedule-based public transportation and other transporation planning models.

Aggressive Signal Priority with Compensation: Maximizing the Transit Benefit Without Disrupting Traffic

In the Engineering Building, Room 315

Abstract: Signal priority applications in the U.S. tend to be timid about giving priority to buses, because if they interrupt the green period of a competing traffic stream, they have no means of compensating that stream in the next signal cycle (by giving it a longer green period). Common restrictions set up to protect cross streets include preventing a priority interruption in consecutive signal cycles, having short extension intervals, and inhibiting priority when traffic is heavy on the cross street. In addition, most priority applications are limited to one or two simple control tactics, green extension and early green. As a result of these limitations, transit signal priority often falls far short of its potential, saving buses 3 seconds or less per intersection. We show how by using multiple intelligent signal priority tactics, in which traffic is aggressively interrupted but also compensated in the following cycle, large benefits can accrue to transit operations without any undue effect on general traffic. In a simulation study of four traffic signals around a large bus terminal in Boston, we found that average delay per bus could be reduced by almost 20 seconds per intersection with no change in average motorist delay.

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