1. Using Innovative Data Analysis Methods to Facilitate Communication and Transit Investment Decision Making in Montgomery County, MD U.S.DOT Transportation Data Palooza Workshop May 9, 2013 Eric Graye, AICP, PTP Montgomery County Planning Department

2. Montgomery County, MD Geographical Orientation 2

3. Transportation Policy Area Review (TPAR) Transit Adequacy Component Discussion Outline 3 Background and TPAR Overview Transit Analysis Approach Transit Adequacy Measures Transit Adequacy Solutions Next Steps - Potential Refinements

4. TPAR Background The Subdivision Staging Policy is a growth management tool which is an element of the County’s Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance (has evolved during the past 3 decades) TPAR is the County’s area-wide transportation adequacy test introduced as an element of the 2012 Subdivision Staging Policy Independently evaluates the adequacy of roadways and transit performance for more in-depth analysis and staging of improvements of these two types of transportation service Ten (10) year analysis time horizon 4

5. TPAR Overview Transit adequacy based on the evaluation of current local/regional bus and rail service Adequacy standards categorized (urban, suburban & rural) Roadway adequacy based on the evaluation of future arterial travel speeds in the peak direction (averaged for 19 policy areas in the County) At the request of FHWA staff, the focus of this presentation is directed to the transit adequacy component of TPAR A detailed discussion and description of the TPAR process found at … http://www.montgomeryplanning.org/research/growth_policy/subdivision_st aging_policy/2012/documents/SSPappendix2TPAR.pdf http://www.montgomeryplanning.org/research/growth_policy/subdivision_st aging_policy/2012/documents/SSPappendix2TPAR.pdf 5

6. Results of TPAR Transit Service Adequacy Analysis Policy area transit adequacy evaluation based on three metrics: coverage, headway and span Headway found to be the most pervasive inadequacy Policy area fails adequacy test if found inadequate for any of the three metrics 6

7. Transit Quality of Service Standards Process not used to assess mode share of transit service Mode share estimated in the context of the application of the region travel demand model 7

8. General Solutions to Achieve Transit Adequacy 8

9. Transit Adequacy Analysis - Germantown West Geographical Orientation 9

10. Transit Adequacy Analysis - Germantown West CoverageHeadway & Span of Service 10

11. Transit Adequacy Solution Conditional Bus Project to Increase Peak Headways 11 Transit service improvement on 13 routes serving 9 policy areas Addition of 32 buses, plus 15% for spares (roughly 11% of current Ride-On fleet) Level of service improvements determined in collaboration with MCDOT Service improved to residential & employment centers Route-level ridership not forecasted Transit service improvement reflected in mode share results derived from regional travel demand model

12. TPAR Refinements/Next Steps? Potential to use archived Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) data provided by local bus service operators to test the ability to measure average route speeds Currently, AVL data not sufficiently disaggregated to be used in a consistent fashion Potential to develop independent transit performance measure based on bus speed travel on arterials Potential to contrast AVL data with Vehicle Probe Project (VPP) data (provided by INRIX) for similar time periods 12