WORKSHOP 6: THE COLLECTIVE PERSPECTIVE

Workshop 6 was the collective group and viewed the problem of evaluating urban public transportation from many different perspectives. Due to the breadth of the subject area, the problem could not be dealt with as comprehensively as desired. Nevertheless, the following research projects were identified as being necessary for an adequate evaluation of urban public transportation: (1) effects of the absence or decline of scheduled public transportation services on those who are expected to be dependent on transit; (2) benefits of transforming institutional constraints to incentives for innovative transit service; (3) economic impact of labor practices on transit efficiency and the implications of current trends; (4) improved techniques for identifying and serving transit market requirements; (5) benefits of the transit system stratified by city size (not limited to dollar measures); (6) advantages of scheduling activities in which transit users engage to be more compatible with efficient transit operations; (7) transit alternatives for non-CBD travel; (8) development of measures and standards to assist definitions of travel service levels; (9) development of aggregate measures providing comparison between cities of levels of services; (10) identification and development of standard definitions and techniques for collecting data required for evaluation and performance measures; (11) development of standardized benefit measures for transit evaluation; (12) public transportation versus other community services and facilities; (13) classification of alternative service concepts and identification of major similarities and differences in layman's terms; (14) analysis of the relationship between transit system evaluation measures and the variables being controlled that affect the evaluation measures; and (15) development of guidelines for methodology and research design for the evaluation of transit service demonstrations and trials of innovations.