IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v53y2016i5p915-935.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A comparative assessment of the factors associated with station-level streetcar versus light rail transit ridership in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Luis Enrique Ramos-Santiago

    (Florida State University, USA)

  • Jeffrey Brown

    (Florida State University, USA)

Abstract

The proliferation of streetcar projects in US cities is one of the most significant transportation developments of recent years, yet little is known about the factors that contribute to streetcar ridership or whether these factors differ from those related to light rail transit use. This study uses multivariate models to examine differences in the factors related to average weekday station boardings on a set of US streetcar and light rail systems. While there are some similarities with respect to population levels and proximity to special generators for ridership on each mode, the results also point to important differences in the role that service characteristics, socioeconomic factors, and land use factors have on station-level ridership. The set of factors associated with light rail boardings suggest light rail’s use by a more utilitarian rider market, while those factors associated with modern streetcars suggest greater use by individuals trying to reach tourism and special activity centre-related destinations. These findings suggest that the modes are not substitutes for one another and that cities should carefully consider the decision to select one mode or the other for implementation.

Suggested Citation

  • Luis Enrique Ramos-Santiago & Jeffrey Brown, 2016. "A comparative assessment of the factors associated with station-level streetcar versus light rail transit ridership in the United States," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(5), pages 915-935, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:53:y:2016:i:5:p:915-935
    DOI: 10.1177/0042098015571057
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042098015571057
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0042098015571057?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kuby, Michael & Barranda, Anthony & Upchurch, Christopher, 2004. "Factors influencing light-rail station boardings in the United States," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 223-247, March.
    2. Kim, Sungyop & Ulfarsson, Gudmundur F. & Todd Hennessy, J., 2007. "Analysis of light rail rider travel behavior: Impacts of individual, built environment, and crime characteristics on transit access," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 41(6), pages 511-522, July.
    3. G. Currie & A. Ahern & A. Delbosc, 2011. "Exploring the drivers of light rail ridership: an empirical route level analysis of selected Australian, North American and European systems," Transportation, Springer, vol. 38(3), pages 545-560, May.
    4. Taylor, Brian D. & Fink, Camille N.Y., 2003. "The Factors Influencing Transit Ridership: A Review and Analysis of the Ridership Literature," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt3xk9j8m2, University of California Transportation Center.
    5. Gutiérrez, Javier & Cardozo, Osvaldo Daniel & García-Palomares, Juan Carlos, 2011. "Transit ridership forecasting at station level: an approach based on distance-decay weighted regression," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 19(6), pages 1081-1092.
    6. A. Colin Cameron & Pravin K. Trivedi, 2010. "Microeconometrics Using Stata, Revised Edition," Stata Press books, StataCorp LP, number musr, March.
    7. Erick Guerra & Robert Cervero, 2011. "Cost of a Ride," Journal of the American Planning Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 77(3), pages 267-290.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tu, Wei & Cao, Rui & Yue, Yang & Zhou, Baoding & Li, Qiuping & Li, Qingquan, 2018. "Spatial variations in urban public ridership derived from GPS trajectories and smart card data," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 45-57.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jesper Bláfoss Ingvardson & Otto Anker Nielsen, 2022. "The influence of vicinity to stations, station characteristics and perceived safety on public transport mode choice: a case study from Copenhagen," Public Transport, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 459-480, June.
    2. Kepaptsoglou, Konstantinos & Stathopoulos, Antony & Karlaftis, Matthew G., 2017. "Ridership estimation of a new LRT system: Direct demand model approach," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 146-156.
    3. Ingvardson, Jesper Bláfoss & Nielsen, Otto Anker, 2018. "How urban density, network topology and socio-economy influence public transport ridership: Empirical evidence from 48 European metropolitan areas," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 50-63.
    4. Tu, Wei & Cao, Rui & Yue, Yang & Zhou, Baoding & Li, Qiuping & Li, Qingquan, 2018. "Spatial variations in urban public ridership derived from GPS trajectories and smart card data," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 45-57.
    5. Duncan, Michael & Christensen, Robert K., 2013. "An analysis of park-and-ride provision at light rail stations across the US," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 148-157.
    6. Aston, Laura & Currie, Graham & Kamruzzaman, Md. & Delbosc, Alexa & Teller, David, 2020. "Study design impacts on built environment and transit use research," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    7. Li, Shaoying & Lyu, Dijiang & Huang, Guanping & Zhang, Xiaohu & Gao, Feng & Chen, Yuting & Liu, Xiaoping, 2020. "Spatially varying impacts of built environment factors on rail transit ridership at station level: A case study in Guangzhou, China," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    8. Wasserman, Jacob L. & Taylor, Brian D., 2023. "State of the BART: Analyzing the Determinants of Bay Area Rapid Transit Use in the 2010s," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    9. Manout, Ouassim & Bonnel, Patrick & Bouzouina, Louafi, 2018. "Transit accessibility: A new definition of transit connectors," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 88-100.
    10. Deka, Devajyoti, 2012. "The impacts of non-resident parking restrictions at commuter rail stations," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 451-461.
    11. Lascano Kežić, Marcelo E. & Durango-Cohen, Pablo Luis, 2018. "New ridership for old rail: An analysis of changes in the utilization of Chicago's urban rail system, 1990–2008," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 17-26.
    12. Vergel-Tovar, C. Erik & Rodriguez, Daniel A., 2018. "The ridership performance of the built environment for BRT systems: Evidence from Latin America," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 172-184.
    13. Diab, Ehab & Kasraian, Dena & Miller, Eric J. & Shalaby, Amer, 2020. "The rise and fall of transit ridership across Canada: Understanding the determinants," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 101-112.
    14. Wang, Jing & Wan, Feng & Dong, Chunjiao & Yin, Chaoying & Chen, Xiaoyu, 2023. "Spatiotemporal effects of built environment factors on varying rail transit station ridership patterns," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    15. Duncan, Michael, 2019. "Would the replacement of park-and-ride facilities with transit-oriented development reduce vehicle kilometers traveled in an auto-oriented US region?," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 293-301.
    16. Yang, Chao & Wan, Zhiyang & Yuan, Quan & Zhou, Yang & Sun, Maopeng, 2023. "Travel before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic: Exploring factors in essential travel using empirical data," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    17. Chiou, Yu-Chiun & Jou, Rong-Chang & Yang, Cheng-Han, 2015. "Factors affecting public transportation usage rate: Geographically weighted regression," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 161-177.
    18. Ding, Chuan & Cao, Xinyu & Liu, Chao, 2019. "How does the station-area built environment influence Metrorail ridership? Using gradient boosting decision trees to identify non-linear thresholds," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 70-78.
    19. Jinbao Zhao & Wei Deng & Yan Song & Yueran Zhu, 2014. "Analysis of Metro ridership at station level and station-to-station level in Nanjing: an approach based on direct demand models," Transportation, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 133-155, January.
    20. Saiyad, Gulnazbanu & Srivastava, Minal & Rathwa, Dipak, 2022. "Exploring determinants of feeder mode choice behavior using Artificial Neural Network: Evidences from Delhi metro," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 598(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:53:y:2016:i:5:p:915-935. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.