Design and Evaluation of Small City Transit Options

Innovation in the delivery of transit service in smaller urban areas is no easy task. Budgetary matters tend to dominate the decision horizons of local transit officials. Coming up with local and state revenues to cover operating deficits is a major task, and efficient management of the present conventional bus transit system is a time-consuming challenge for transit operators. It is difficult for both managers and decision-makers to step beyond these day-to-day headaches, to examine and evaluate 'new' service concepts, which always seem to have associated cost and performance risks. In a study recently completed for the National Cooperative Transit Research Program, a seminar involving transit officials from 11 different smaller cities across the country was held. The seminar focused on those issues and associated decision-making criteria which were most important to local transit decision-makers.