The Factors Influencing Transit Ridership: A Review and Analysis of the Ridership Literature

摘要: What explains transit ridership? The answer to this simple question is both obvious and complex. Public systems carry large shares of person travel in older, larger metropolitan areas around the globe, but most places – old new, small losing market share private vehicles. Nationally, only 2.1 percent all trips were on public 2001, compared 85.8 by vehicle, 9.9 foot bicycle, 2.2 other means (2001 National Household Travel Survey). Even casual observer cities can offer informed speculation why year 2000 commuters using San Francisco (19 percent) nearly five times higher than Atlanta (4 percent). Population density, levels vehicle ownership, topography, freeway network extent, parking availability cost, extent service frequency, fares, system safety cleanliness, so surely play a role. But relatively importance these various factors, interaction between them not well understood. Yet understanding relative influence factors central policy debates over transportation investments pricing deployment services. research literature explaining ridership surprisingly uneven, some cases poorly conceived, results are often ambiguous or contradictory. goal paper review ridership, critique sometimes significant weaknesses previous studies, draw conclusions from more rigorous studies which use, recommendations steps needed better understand explain ridership. To do this, we begin offering taxonomy research.