Public Transportation Solutions for Regional Travel: Technical Report

Constant growth in rural areas and extensive suburban development have contributed to increasingly more people needing seamless and adequate public transportation to and from nearby cities. Coordinating existing services or determining the need for expanded services tends to require new paradigm thinking for those interested in servicing growing potential markets in interregional travel markets. Added to the travel pressures in these growing regions is the call from funding agencies and planners to better integrate medical and other human service transportation with more traditional public transportation service. Increasingly, Texans are commuting from outlying communities to jobs, universities, and for other trip purposes to nearby urban and suburban areas. The current separation of urban and rural public transportation services means that Texans who travel between jurisdictions - from rural or suburban communities to cities or the reverse - often find public transportation a difficult or unviable mode of transportation. The need for regional public transportation is likely to grow, not diminish. This report documents the research performed regarding public transportation coordination practices and transit travel demand estimation, and summarizes the tools and guidelines developed as products of the research project.