Park and Ride Facilities. This project does not propose or impact any Park and Ride facilities.
Park and Ride Facilities. This project does not include any new park-and-ride facilities. Currently, park-and-ride facilities are not within the project area.
Park and Ride Facilities. Parking will impact ridership as insufficient parking may limit non-transit dependent individuals from accessing the express service. If current park-and-ride lots cannot cover the market area or do not have enough space to serve the parking needs, additional parking needs to be considered in the alternatives. The NCHRP Report 414 provided general guidelines in determining the location and size of park-and-ride facilities. Generally, the facilities should be located proximal to areas experiencing major congestion, with high levels of demand, have good accessibility and visibility. Other considerations include cost, security, proximity to transit services and other user amenities, potential for expansion, and environmental impacts. When the service alternatives are determined, detailed ridership analysis can be performed. Realistic and reliable ridership forecasts are essential in sizing system design features, developing service plans, estimating capital and operating costs, performing alternative analysis and cost benefit comparisons, and making investment decisions. In general, the analysis should be able to provide ridership forecasts for the base year, the opening year, the year when ridership reaches maturity, and a design year usually 20 years into the future. Ridership estimates are needed for peak and off- peak conditions by line segment and by station boardings and alightings. Various methods can be used for transit ridership estimation, including service elasticity, econometric models, regression analysis, and regional planning models, etc. The next task of this project will discuss detailed methodologies for express bus ridership forecast. It should be noted that, studies have shown that the attractiveness of express bus systems would be greater than expected on the basis of reductions in travel times and costs, and they are likely to attract levels of ridership similar to those of rail based systems.
