FEASIBILITY OF DEVELOPING LOW-COST MEASURES OF DEMAND FOR PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION IN RURAL AREAS

The Appalachian region has many rural areas of limited accessibility. To improve the accessibility of the rural carless (poor, elderly, young, inform) public transportation has often been suggested. The objective of the research is to develop a low-cost methodology for determining latent demand for public transportation in rural areas, i.e., to develop a data base of key socioeconomic, highway network, and geographic variables which can be used to estimate latent demand along possible rural transit routes. Data have been collected on existing rural transit operations in Planning Region VI of West Virginia (Monongalia, Taylor, Marion, Harrison, Doddridge, and Preston counties) by means of an -on-off survey and an on-board questionnaire survey. Using these as indicators of demand, this information will be related to census data for the affected region to determine if a simplified modeling approach to estimate rural public transportation demand is feasible. /Author/