TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH IN CHICAGO

Although the total expenditures for research and development, along with marketing, probably total no more than 5 percent of gross revenue for the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), accomplishments in research and development have been significant. Two-way radio and silent emergency alarms have been installed throughout the system, significantly improving communication, and trains are dispatched from terminals and stations automatically. Workers at the control center minimize delays through effective troubleshooting, respacing train intervals, and various other maneuvers. Rapid transit extensions and accompanying bus route changes have been used to make the system more efficient; 26,000 new rides have been generated daily. A corporation's move to an outlying area was accompanied by its partial subsidizing of bus service from the city to its new plant; the service's success has been followed by several similar plans for the workers of other companies. While rapid transit in Chicago has maintained its patronage between 1948 and about 1973, buses have lost more than 50 percent of their patronage. Research and development are needed to find ways to improve bus speed and dependability. Ways to reduce or eliminate conflicts between buses, and other vehicles must be found. Some examples that need research include giving buses the right-of-way over other vehicles, reserving express highway lanes for buses, and reserving arterial street lanes for buses. Research and development are also needed to determine market aspects in terms of funding and public acceptance and to improve bus design to improve speed, safety, and passenger comfort. Long debugging periods are a problem affecting rapid transit car equipment. Research is needed to find better ways to quantify the trade-offs of bus route changes and to improve information, maps, schedules, stations, and vehicle graphics to aid psychological and visual-audio communications. Communities of very light population density, communities outside traditional service, also need some sort of service. Research is also needed in computerization of schedule preparation, making meaningful models for estimating traffic, fare policy and collection methodology, and revenue handling. Capital investmant planning and programming will have to be studied, as well. Without governmental aid programs, certain transit projects of benefit to the community would probably never be researched and developed.