This digest is an overview of an international study mission that explored how public transportation systems in several cities in India and China have implemented plans, policies, technologies, and strategies for creating more livable communities through bus, metro, bus rapid transit, rail, and light rail systems.    The Indian and Chinese systems visited were designed to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions, lower operating costs, and provide safe and accessible transportation services.

The report explores issues and potential solutions for identifying and sharing the cost of providing transportation services for access to community-based human services programs. Collectively, the two volumes examine current practices and offer strategies for collecting necessary data, addressing administrative and policy-related issues, and establishing cost allocation procedures. Volume 1: The Transportation Services Cost Sharing Toolkit leads the user through the process of setting up the necessary cost accounting system, identifying the data requirements and the measurement parameters, and describing procedures for applying the model. This volume includes instructions for using the actual Cost Sharing Model for setup and application on a CD-ROM.  The CD-ROM is also available for download from TRB's website as an ISO image. An executive summary of the report is included.

The report explore issues and potential solutions for identifying and sharing the cost of providing transportation services for access to community-based human services programs. Collectively, the two volumes examine current practices and offer strategies for collecting necessary data, addressing administrative and policy-related issues, and establishing cost allocation procedures. Volume 2: The Research Report summarizes all of the study components that contributed to formation of the Toolkit.  It includes an extended evaluation of current experiences, and describes the regulatory environment that frames transportation service delivery requirements. An executive summary of the report is included.

This report explores how performance measurements are used to achieve organizational goals and enhance quality of service at public transport planning, funding, and operating agencies in Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China; in the city-state of Singapore; in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; and in Taipei, Taiwan

This report explores preventive maintenance measures taken by a sampling of transit agencies to ensure buses are on time, protect taxpayer investments, and promote passenger satisfaction and public safety.

This report explores the Buy America requirements, with an emphasis on the specific requirements that apply to manufactured products and to rolling stock.

This report explores legal issues associated with the U.S. Federal Transit Administration’s New Starts process.

This report is a digest of the progress and status of TCRP Project J-7,  Synthesis of Information Related to Transit Problems, for which the Transportation Research Board is the agency conducting the research.

This report examines pedestrian and motorist behaviors contributing to light rail transit (LRT) safety and explores mitigating measures available designed to improve safety along LRT alignments. The report also includes suggestions to facilitate the compilation of accident data in a coordinated and homogeneous manner across LRT systems. Finally, the report provides a catalog of existing and innovative safety devices, safety treatments, and practices along LRT alignments. Appendices B through E of TCRP Report 137 were published as TCRP Web-Only Document 42.

Transit agencies face numerous challenges in providing passengers with a safe and efficient means of travel while respecting the freedom of expression protected by the First Amendment. In May 1998, the Transportation Research Board published Transit Cooperative Research Program Legal Research Digest (LRD) 10, Restrictions on Speech and Expressive Activities in Transit Terminals and Facilities ("LRD 10"), a survey of the relevant law and its development up to the time of publication. This digest supplements LRD No. 10, summarizing and analyzing the status of this important area of the law in light of court decisions and other developments that have arisen in subsequent years.

This report provides an overview of an International Transit Studies Program mission that investigated public transportation's role in addressing global climate change in several cities in Ireland, Germany, Italy, and Spain.

This report updates an earlier synthesis offering information on the planning, implementation, and operation of campus transit systems by moving to a focus on the communities in which schools are located. It includes local and regional transportation systems that serve college and university campuses. Further, it presents information about practices and trends in the areas of transit operations, and campus policies and planning, with a special focus area in technology and environmental innovations

This synthesis covers a wide range of policies and practices that transit agencies use to provide services to persons with disabilities more effectively and efficiently.

This publication examines basic privacy issues associated with the acquisition and storage of financial and trip data associated with the use of a transit smart card.  The report explores who can access the data collected, what data may be accessed and under what conditions, and how the information can be used.

Residential location and travel behavior have a large effect on society's consumption of energy, levels of pollution, and on health.  There is a great value in increasing the understanding of the mechanism of choice.  Better understanding leads to better insights as to how to predict choice and how to influence it through better polices, education and communication.  This report aids to improve the understanding of how people make travel and location decisions, and to derive practical  implications and policy guidance for encouraging more use of public transportation and walking.

This digest notes the progress and status of J-7, "Synthesis of Information Related to Transit Problems" for which the Transportation Research Board is the agency conducting the research.

This report will assist public transportation agency senior staff, law enforcement, and security service providers in assessing the advantages and disadvantages of establishing a passenger security inspection program. The objective is to provide guidance that a public transportation agency may use when considering whether, where, when, and how to introduce a passenger security inspection program into its operations. This volume identifies the most promising types of screening technologies and methods currently in use or being tested, the operational considerations for the deployment of these technologies in land-based systems, the legal precedent that either applies or that should be contemplated in connection with passenger screening activities, and a passenger security inspection policy decision-making model.

This document consists of findings, decisions, and five compliance assessments interpreting or pertaining to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).  The Federal Transit Administration's (FTA's) Letters of Findings and Compliance Assessments includes FTA interpretations of Part III of the ADA, which pertains to public accommodations and transportation.  FTA interpretations can be in letter findings, decisions on complaints, and compliance assessments.  FTA's interpretations are available for download as an ISO image.

This synthesis's purpose is to document effective methods of communicating with riders.  It views the state of the practice in agency communications with customers using specific  elements as a way to determine what constitutes successful communication:

TCRP Report 116: Guidebook for Evaluating, Selecting, and Implementing Suburban Transit Services examines the current status of suburban transit services and land-use environments and the relationship between the two. Types of suburban transit services include commuter, route deviation, demand response, circulators, shuttles, and vanpools. Also, the guidebook describes the emerging trends that significantly influence the availability and operation of suburban transit services. This report updates information presented in TCRP Report 55: Guidelines for Enhancing Suburban Mobility Using Public Transportation and presents the latest research results and issues related to suburban transit services. This information will be useful to transit professionals and policy makers in planning and implementing suburban transit services.

This digest contains recommendations for strategies, tools, and techniques to better manage major transit capital projects over $100 million. Information is presented on various stimation, project-management, and cost-containment approaches that were applied successfully to 14 case studies. The results, which indicate which tools and techniques contributed to more effective project management, will be useful to transit systems and communities endeavoring to plan or implement major transit investments.

This report examines current and innovative practices of U.S. transit agencies in the development and implementation of passenger no-show and late cancellation policies for paratransit programs operated under the regulatory requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA).  It reviews the administration, community response, and effectiveness of policies in small, medium, and large transit agencies.  It also addresses policies as a way to improve system productivity, efficiency, and capacity, and as a means to better service riders with disabilities who may experience difficulties with the advance reservation aspect of most ADA complementary paratransit operations.

This report  examines the value and benefits of strategic planning and management in transit agencies.  It also provides case studies from five transit agencies based on the comprehensiveness of process or presence of innovative or noteworthy practices.

This synthesis explores current perspectives, practices, and experiences in the use of performance measures for the allocation of financial assistance of local transit systems.  It focuses primarily on the extent to which traditional measures of transit performance, internal measures of economic efficiency, service effectiveness, and productivity are used in allocating funds. The report summarizes the experences of a variety of transit agencies, it would be of interest to transit practitioners and transportation professionals, including technical and research staff.

This report documents principles, techniques, and strategies that are used in workforce recruitment, development, and retention.  It includes a companion document, communications Strategy and Implementation Plan, Positioning the Public Transportation Operating Agency as an Employer of Choice that describes strategies and solutions that offer the greatest potential for positioning public transportation operating agencies as an employer of choice.  The toolkit will assist transportation policy makers and practitioners in implementing more effective human resources business planning processes.

This manual is intended to be a fundamental reference document for public transit practitioners and policy makers.  The manual contains background, statistics, and graphics on the various types of public transportation, and it provides a framework for measuring transit availability and quality of service from the passenger point of view.  The manual contains quantitative techniques for calculating the capacity of bus, rail, and ferry transit services, and transit stops, stations, and terminals.  Examples problems are included.

Transportation, acting  through enhanced accessibility, is a long acknowledge influence in the shaping of cities and the determination of land development potential.  The reverse, however, the impact of land use decisions on transportation outcomes, has only gradually achieved recognition.  It is these reverse impacts of interest in the treatment of land use and site design options as "transportation" strategies, a facet of "smart growth" that provides the impetus for this chapter.  This chapter provides information on what is known or surmised about the relationships between land use/site design and travel behavior.  This chapter summarizes key reasons why planners and decisionmakers view the land-use transportation connection as important; charaterizes the types of strategies of concern to transportation analysts, and relate them to elements of land use and site design; identify analytic approaches that have been used to examine the transportation-land use link, and offer guidance as to their reliability.  This report will be of interest to transit, transportation, and land use planning practitioners; educators and researchers; and professionals across a broad spectrum of transportation and planning agencies, MPOs, and local, state, and federal government agencies.

This report provides a valuable resource for people who are responsible for financing public transportation capital projects. The primary objective of the primer is to identify and evaluate financing options for public transportation capital projects. It is organized to provide a wide-ranging audience with easy access to the information they need most regarding capital financing.  The primer inlcudes descriptive sections that outline the basic financing approaches and structures available, as well as sections that help system managers and public officials decide when it is most appropriate to apply alternative financing techniques.

This report  describes how to improve public transit services to make them more attractive to older persons.  This report will be of interest to practitioners and policymakers in agencies and organizations that plan, provide, administer, and fund public transit that may serve older persons.  The report provides information for public transportation providers and planners to address future transportation challenges generated by an increasingly older society.  It describes exemplary transportation services and innovative transportation alternatives that will enable older persons in the United States to maintain the independence they want.

This report is intended to provide greater familiarity with emerging techniques in the use of flexible funding, and to point out issues that may need further attention.  It is also intended to provide a review of how current flexible funding provisions are being used to support transit invetment and to examine, through a limited number of specified experiences, lessons that may have the broadest relevance throughout the transit industry.  This synthesis will be of interest to transit agency professionals and the consultants who work with them in dealing with flexible funding opportunities.

This digest identifies the key workforce challenges facing the public transportation industry, identifies current approaches to addressing those challenges, and suggests an agenda that the public transportation industry can use to move forward in the important area of work-force development.

This digest supplements and updates TCRP Report 52, "Joint Operation of Light Rail Transit or Diesel Multiple Unit Vehicles with Railroads."  The digest updates information in TCRP Report 52 to recognize the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) and Federal Transit Administration (FTA) joint statement of policy concerning shared use issued in July 2000, provides supplemental information concerning the international experience with joint operation, and updates a disucssion of the key issues and conclusions.  This digest also defines joint operation as commingled, simultaneous train operation on shared track by railroad trains (freight, passenger, or both) and rail transit vehicles that are not fully compliant with current FRA regulations.

This handbook will be of interest to transportation planners, human service agencies transportation providers, and others concerned with using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to support welfare to work transportation planning and service delivery. The handbook includes guidance on how agencies can either implement GIS or enhance their current GIS applications for this purpose.  Accompany this handbook is a CD-Rom containing case study descriptions and color illustrations of GIS applications for transit planning and welfare to work purposes.

This report presents key ideas and principles that point the way to fundamental change. It addresses why fundamental change is now needed in public transportation and how other businesses and industries have responded to similar factors and forces in the recent past. Six broad challenges that currently drive the need for fundamental change in public transportation are presented. The report progress logically from an assessment of the current organization of the transit industry to a summary of the fundamental elements of a public transportation paradigm shift based on lessons learned from other industries.

This guidebook provides information about the role of transportation in supporting welfare-to-work initiatives and identifies practical strategies to improve access to job opportunities for former welfare recipients making the transition to work. It also describes service approaches that include modifications to existing mass transit services, coordination between transportation services, ride-sharing programs, automobile ownership programs, and collaborations between faith-based and community-based groups.

This study discusses the development of the law of privacy and examines its continuing evolution within the context of societal and technological changes, particularly how these principles apply to the public transportation industry and its employees.

This report will be of interest to transportation and urban planners and to local decision-makers. The effectiveness of automobile parking strategies as a means of increasing transit ridership was analyzed. Eight strategies affecting the price and availability of parking and transit service levels were examined, alone and in combination, to assess their effects on travel mode choice, particularly transit. The study concludes that no single strategy is both effective and politically feasible enough to warrant implementation throughout a metropolitan area. Rather, the researchers recommend that policy-makers implement combinations of parking strategies, in response to the policy and transportation objectives of specific geographical areas.  The final chapter of the report, an implementation guide, provides forms, examples, and other information to assist agencies in selecting combinations of parking strategies that will be appropriate for local needs.

The Transit Cooperative Research Program has identified key aspects of public transportation where new ideas and methods are, in the current vernacular, new paradigms. This report is intended to (1) present the case for a paradigm shift in local public transportation in terms strong enough that a consensus can be reached on the need for action and (2) trigger a wide-ranging debate and dialogue on the basic premises that necessitate a paradigm shift in local public transportation. It also looks closely at selected organizations, both within and outside the transportation sector, which have pursued and achieved dramatic change.

The report identifies and discusses issues associated with joint operation focusing on the current regulatory and institutional environment, railroad and rail transit operations, infrastructure, and rolling stock. It also examines issues relevant to the safe operation of rail transit services with railroads; prioritizes the most critical issues affecting such joint operation using LRT or lightweight DMU vehicles that do not meet current U.S. railroad regulations, standards, or practices; and offers potential guidance on the most critical issues pertaining to implementing joint operation using LRT or lightweight DMU vehicles. This report will be of interest to transit managers, planning and operations professionals, policy makers, and others interested in the potential for joint operations of light rail transit (LRT) or lightweight diesel multiple unit (DMU) vehicles with freight and/or passenger railroads.

This report provides a method to define and measure the costs of personal immobility at a local level and contains a compendium of public transportation practices that address immobility, help reduce costs, and possibly provide economic benefits to both the riders and the larger community. The focus is on practices that assist people who need transportation to health care or who are transitioning from welfare to work. This report should be of interest to planners, decision-makers, and social service and transportation providers. It should also serve as a resource to assist decision-makers and transportation service providers in using their services more effectively to address the issue of personal immobility.

This digest presents key findings from the recently completed Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Project H-13B, Trends in Single- Occupant Vehicle (SOV) and Vehicle Miles of Travel Growth in the United States. The research developed trends and predictions of drive-alone commuting in the United States and addressed the policy implications that will be useful to transportation planners and decision-makers. The objective of the study was to provide a stronger quantitative understanding of the factors that have been affecting the dynamics of commuter mode choices and vehicle occupancy levels in recent years, and to assess the role of public policy in the trends observed. On the basis of this quantitative analysis, the study offers comments on the potential efficacy of policies designed to increase transit ridership and/or to increase average vehicle occupancy levels.

This report addresses the current state of funding for public transportation in the United States, the various circumstances that have contributed to today's funding environment, and specific strategies that transit agencies are pursuing to identify new sources of funding. The report is presented in two parts, firstly, a final report which details a national perspective on public transportation funding and secondly, a casebook detailing innovative methods for generating revenue for public transportation capital and operating costs. The report would be of great interest to federal, state, and local transportation officials, policy makers, and professionals concerned with funding for local public transportation services during the past decade and in the near future.

This report will be of interest to individuals and organizations seeking to better understand the concept of mobility management and those seeking to make the transition from traditional transit operating agency to mobility manager. The report presents a useful compendium of mobility management functions; identifies barriers to mobility management; includes findings drawn from seven case studies, which are documented as Appendix A; presents actions to promote mobility management; and documents the results of technical assistance provided to two transit systems in Appendixes C and D.

This report will be of interest to transportation professionals and policy makers responsible for transit investment decisions. The report categorizes and describes transit benefits and disbenefits, presents the dimensions of transit's economic impact, addresses the linkages between increased transit investment and use, and changes in long-term, region wide economic conditions that can be measured with current analytic methods, and provides examples of transit benefits and disbenefits based on recent analysis.

This report will be of interest to a broad cross section of individuals involved in transportation and land use planning and development. The research addressed many facets of the relationships between land use and public transportation. These relationships are reexamined, explained, evaluated, and documented to facilitate cost-effective multimodal public transportation investment decisions. The research team, four of which are published in this two-volume report, produced six reports. This volume, Volume 1, contains two of these reports. The first one synthesizes the overall findings and conclusions of TCRP Project H-1, An Examination of the Relationships between Transit and Urban Form, and the existing body of literature on transit and urban form.

This report will be of value to those individuals involved in implementing the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA), in particular, those involved in planning, approving, and financing intermodal surface passenger transportation projects. The report identifies institutional barriers to intermodal transportation procedures and planning, examines opportunities for improvement, and provides ten strategies to mitigate current barriers and more importantly implement ISTEA.

This report will be of interest to individuals involved in ongoing discussions and debates about urban sprawl and its effects. Section I provides a working definition of sprawl and its associated costs, then provides historical discussion, dating back to the early 1920s when zoning acts were initially developed, and to the 1950s when the term sprawl entered the planning literature. Section II contains a Literature Synthesis. This section systematically presents the literature on sprawl in chapters that focus on the following major areas of impact: public/private capital and operating costs; transportation and travel costs; land/natural habitat preservation; quality of life; and social issues. Section III of the report presents annotations of studies, organized in chapters that focus on the same five major impact areas as Section II. While this report will not resolve the debate on the benefits and costs of urban sprawl, it provides an important repository of information for the debaters.