Using Quantitative Methods in Equity and Demographic Analysis to Inform Transit Fare Restructuring Decisions

New York City Transit (NYCT) and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) have integrated race and income equity considerations into its extensive public outreach processes for fare changes. Responding to Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA) Civil Rights/Title VI and Environmental Justice (EJ) requirements, NYCT developed two different quantitative and analytical approaches for forecasting equity impacts of fare restructuring decisions, in place of more traditional origin-destination surveys. The first approach uses standard aggregate fare elasticity models to estimate diversions between different fare classes and ridership losses resulting from fare adjustments. Average fare changes by fare media type are disaggregated with historical farecard usage patterns (consumption data) by subway station and bus route, and translated into demographic variables (minority/non-minority, and at or below/above poverty) based on Census data. Overall average fare changes are used to analyze equity impacts. A second, more experimental approach identifies user demographics by daily first swipe locations, and estimates daily average fares as actually experienced by each passenger using sequential transactions on discrete farecards. To meet ongoing requirements, methods were developed to analyze impacts separately for peak and off-peak time periods, and to demonstrate equity using statistical tests. Impact analyses results, and historical ridership, revenue, and market share data collected by the MetroCard Automated Fare Collection (AFC) system all inform fare structure design processes, with particular attention being devoted to distributing fare increase burdens equitably.