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Amendments to Fixed Route Service Standards
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DESCRIPTION: Requesting the approval of updates to the RTA’s Fixed Route Service Standards |
AGENDA NO: Click or tap here to enter text. |
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ACTION REQUEST: ☒ Approval ☐ Review Comment ☐ Information Only ☐ Other |
RECOMMENDATION:
recommendation
Authorize the Chief Executive Officer to implement proposed amendments to the RTA’s Fixed Route Service Standards Policy.
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ISSUE/BACKGROUND:
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In March of 2021, the RTA Board of Commissioners adopted a new Fixed Route Service Standards policy to provide clear and equitable standards by which fixed route service was planned, developed, and implemented. After utilizing this policy for the RTA staff recommend the following updates and additions to improve its effectiveness:
- Addition of Access Metrics
- Update of the Schedule Reliability framework
- Adjustment of route productivity measures.
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DISCUSSION:
The RTA staff seek to make the following updates to the Fixed Route Service Standards policy:
Access Metrics:
The RTA’s 20-Year Strategic Mobility Plan identify a number of different categories to which transit access should be measured to help determine system effectiveness. They are access to jobs, high-frequency transit lines, and key destinations like major healthcare facilities, community health facilities, libraries, and parks. The following access metrics will be added to the Service Standards:
• Percentage of jobs in Orleans and Jefferson parishes that the average household within RTA’s service area can reach within 60 minutes by transit during peak and off-peak hours.
• Percentage of households in the service area within 60 minutes by transit of a major healthcare facility during typical office hours.
• Percentage of households in the service area within 30 minutes by transit of a community health center during typical office hours.
• Percentage of households in the service area within 30 minutes by transit of a major park or recreational facility during typical hours.
• Percentage of households in the service area within 30 minutes by transit of a public library during typical hours.
• Percentage of the service area population within one-half mile walking distance of a frequent transit coming every 20 minutes or less.
• Percentage of regional jobs within one-half mile of frequent transit coming every 20 minutes or less.
• Percentage of household without access to a car within one-half mile of frequent transit coming every 20 minutes or less.
• Percentage of residents of color within one-half mile of frequent transit coming every 20 minutes or less.
• Percentage of residents in poverty within one-half mile of frequent transit coming every 20 minutes or less.
Schedule Reliability
Passengers use published bus, streetcar, and ferry schedules to plan their trips on the RTA’s fixed-route system. An important measure of the service quality and effectiveness is Schedule Reliability, or how well the service that is delivered matches the agency’s published schedules. When vehicles are regularly early, late, or don’t show up, passengers experience disruptions, which can range from a minor inconvenience to a total failure of the system to meet their needs. The two metrics the RTA uses to measure Schedule Reliability are On-Time Performance and the Percentage of Scheduled Revenue Service Delivered.
The RTA staff propose the following changes to the policy:
- Changing the On-Time Window from one (1) minute early to five (5) minutes late to one (1) minute early to seven (7) minutes late.
This expansion of the on-time window is designed to account for impacts to OTP that are outside of the RTA’s control without requiring significant manual manipulation of data by RTA staff.
- OTP targets: Bus - 85%, Streetcar - 85%
There will always be factors outside of the RTA’s control that cause larger deviations from the schedule. These include but are not limited to: police activity, road work, parades and sporting events, extreme weather, non-preventable accidents, unruly passengers, and other unexpected events causing severe traffic congestion. Taking into account the uncertainty and variability in conditions surrounding day-to-day operations, the agency has established targets for On-Time Performance for each mode that set a high standard for service, are operationally achievable, and are in line with industry standards. These are as follows:
- Addition of Revenue Service Delivered
This is a comparison of scheduled versus actual revenue hours. While OTP measures whether a vehicle is early or late, it does not reveal when a vehicle is cut from service or does not show up at all. Therefore, the measurement of Actual Vehicle Revenue Hours supplements OTP as an indicator of schedule reliability by describing the actual service levels that were delivered compared to what was expected. This measurement is also intended to help identify persistent issues that may be preventing the delivery of service on a given route.
Route Productivity
- Current Measurement: Passengers per Platform Hour
- Proposed Measurement: Passengers per Revenue Hour
Reasoning:
Platform Hours includes all time when a vehicle is in operation. This includes revenue service and deadhead. Revenue Hours is only a measurement of time spent in revenue service. A transit vehicle that is not in revenue service should not be servicing passengers. Therefore, measuring passenger usage of service based on Revenue Hours is more illustrative of the productivity of a route than Platform hours. Utilizing Platform Hours to determine route productivity also has the negative impact of penalizing routes that service communities that are farther away from RTA station because these routes incur, by necessity, more deadhead time when traveling from the station to the start of the route. Therefore, using revenue hours instead of platform hours allows for a more equitable assessment of route productivity and a clearer comparison between routes.
FINANCIAL IMPACT:
No direct financial impact.
Changes to how the RTA evaluates existing service may result in service recommendations that have financial impacts, but the proposed policy amendments carry no financial impacts in and of themselves.
NEXT STEPS:
The proposed amendments will be incorporated into the RTA’s existing evaluation framework and will help guide transit service planning and implementation decisions for the agency.
ATTACHMENTS:
1. Current, adopted Fixed Route Service Standards Policy.
2. Proposed text amendments to the Service Standards policy.
Prepared By: Vivek Shah
Title: Director of Service Planning and Scheduling
Reviewed By: Gerard Guter
Title: Chief Operating Officer
3/7/2022
Alex Wiggins Date
Chief Executive Officer