A mixed integer optimization model is developed to determine both the optimal location of transit centres to serve BC Transit's Lower Mainland route network and the optimal allocation of buses to those centres. The existing five transit centres are explored as well as five candidate facilities. The model considers nonrevenue transportation cost (deadhead), capital cost of constructing candidate transit centres and the salvage values of existing centres. A linear regression is generated to produce the travel times from the terminus of a route to potential transit centre locations. The optimal solution is determined, resulting in potential annual savings of over $560,000 compared to the current location-allocation strategy. Various experiments are performed to examine the sensitivity of model parameters and to determine the effect of different planning scenarios. The effect of the optimal solution on driver relief is considered. Conclusions as well as directions for further research are offered.

The north-south rail line known in Vancouver as the Arbutus corridor (Figure #1) is currently under-used but not yet abandoned, and its future use is in debate. As owner of the corridor, the Canadian Pacific Rail Co. has publicly announced its desire to change the corridor into a multi-use development. According to the wishes of residents and reflected in the City of Vancouver's policy, however, the corridor will be preserved for transportation use. An alternative design solution would be reactivating the rail line as a much needed north-south transit route, with an adjacent greenway for pedestrian and bike use, as a more responsible and sustainable vision for this corridor. The feasibility of this design, tested at a smaller scale in three Kitsilano neighbourhoods, revealed it is a viable solution. The issues surrounding this case study are the value of a fair public process to ensure a common vision; the validity of the policy preserving existing transportation corridors in urban areas; and the actual effect of rail transit and greenway upon the adjacent, as well the regional environs. Future directions are toward considering transit as a vital element in promoting sustainable communities.

This thesis examines the opportunities and constraints facing the implementation of Transit Oriented Development (TOD). TOD consists of concentrated, mixed use development within walking distance of a commercial core and a transit stop that provide the focal point for the community and connect the resident to the region. Despite the fact that many planners accept TOD as a useful form of development, TOD has experienced barriers to its implementation. Neither the barriers to implementation, nor the opportunities for overcoming them have been sufficiently researched. This case study of land use planning at the four east Vancouver station areas of Joyce, 29th Avenue, Nanaimo and Broadway of the 'Expo' Advanced Light Rapid Transit (ALRT) line, known locally as 'SkyTrain', addresses this deficiency. Planning literature, planning documents, interviews with seven Vancouver planners, zoning and land use maps, and a land use survey provided the data from which conclusions were drawn. The research suggests that the major barriers to TOD implementation along the Vancouver 'Expo' line were poor transit routing, difficulties in assembling large parcels of land, lack of coordination between public entities, separated regional land use and transportation planning, inadequate political commitment to design and mitigation measures, the setting of goals for the station areas that are not TOD goals and the intrusive nature ALRT due to its elevated guideway. Many of these barriers correspond with those identified by the TOD literature as existing in other cities, but significant barriers that were identified in the case study but not by the literature include the intrusive nature of the ALRT technology due to its elevated guideway, the decision making process that had the province make decisions (e.g. the type of rapid transit technology to be used) without local input, and the absence of sustained implementation. Opportunities for overcoming barriers to TOD include creating more participatory decision making processes that ensure decisions that affect local communities are made at the municipal and regional, rather than provincial, level, the creation of a directly elected agency responsible for both land use and transportation planning, increased coordination between public agencies, and the creation of TOD guidelines.

A city's intersections are places or voids where the trajectories, paths and commuter routes of a cities citizens collide. They are points of momentary stasis. At intersections the agents of speed and haste characteristic of the flow of the city are brought to a collective pause. The challenge of this thesis was to bring about an architectural representation of this negotiation between flow and pause. There was a desire to see the commuterscape of Vancouver as a way of allowing different publics and contrasting programmes the opportunity for chance encounters and collisions. This desire led to the design of a building which served as an intersection, sometimes carefully controlled while at others free and open to the random flows of urbanism. The site at the corner of Main and Terminal streets in Vancouver was chosen because it is a place where the di verse social, economic and historical fabrics of the city are intersecting. This site is the busiest at grade intersection in Vancouver where skytrain and bus passengers, car drivers and pedestrians are variously pushed together and pulled apart. Commuter space and commuter movement through that space are generally assumed to be unproductive, uninfected movement through vacuous and empty space. This thesis challenges that view by inserting a building into this commuter space to utilize the potentials for exchange, negotiation and encounter offered by such a space. The building is made up of two very different programs - one containing a series of small performing arts theatres, the other commercial and rentable office space. In between the two, the inbound and outbound skytrain tracks and a public walkway create varying perceptual experiences which mediate between the two different typologies. The public zones of the building are used to link the varied programs together and to create connections to the surrounding park and buildings.

The subject of this thesis is a technology, the motor vehicle, that greatly affected our society. Between 1900 and 1930, motorization progressed rapidly in the Montreal area as the motor vehicle became a dominant mode of urban transportation. But to reach such a status, the new technology needed more than an increasing number of people adopting it. Because the street was already occupied by different users, automobile drivers had to impose the motor car on it. Above all, it was with tramway promoters that they had to "negociate". / This negotiation related to both the space available in the street and the movement of vehicles. Concerning space, the omnipresence of tramways and their installations along with the parking of motor vehicles, particularly in the downtown area of Montreal, led to suggestions of wide boulevards and subway systems as possible solutions. The fact that tramways had priority in traffic and could not be passed by motor vehicles constituted major obstacles for motorists anxious to benefit from the motor car. By the end of the 1920s, conflicts were so intense that the notion of progress was used to promote both the motor vehicle and the tramway. / These conflicts over the sharing of streets had other implications. First, different sections of Montreal's elite favoured one technology over the other. On the one hand, motorists were well organized. At the same time, tramway concerns were determined to protect their monopoly. This animosity within the elite was intensified by antimonopoly feelings and by dissatisfaction with tramway service. Finally, traffic problems multiplied with motorization: deaths, accidents, law suits and downtown congestion. Traffic became an important preoccupation leading to an increase in police forces and the establishment of numerous organizations dedicated to traffic management. / The popular classes of Montreal were not excluded from these conflicts among the elites. Generally speaking, the entire population was forced to take sides with one group of promoters or the other. Motorization then appears as a factor of division within social classes as well as a phenomenon transcending the barriers between them.

Until recently, transit data lacked a common data format that could be used to share and integrate information among multiple agencies. In 2005, however, Google worked with Tri-Met in Oregon to create the General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS), an open data format now used by all transit agencies that participate in Google Maps. GTFS feeds contain data for scheduled transit service including stop and route locations, schedules and fare information. The broad adoption of GTFS by transit agencies has made it a de facto standard. Those agencies using it are able to participate in a host of traveler services designed for GTFS, most notably transit trip planners. Still, analysts have not widely used GTFS as a data source for transit planning because of the newness of the technology. The objectives of this project are to demonstrate that GTFS feeds are an efficient data source for calculating key transit service metrics and to evaluate the validity of GTFS feeds as a data source. To demonstrate GTFS feeds’ analytic potential, the author created a tool called GTFS Reader, which imports GTFS feeds into a database using open-source products. GTFS Reader also includes a series of queries that calculate metrics like headways, route lengths and stop-spacing. To evaluate the validity of GTFS feeds, annual vehicle revenue miles and hours from the National Transit Database (NTD) are compared to the calculated values from agencies whose GTFS feeds are available. The key finding of this work is that well-formed GTFS feeds are an accurate representation of transit networks and that the method of aggregation presented in this research can be used to effectively and efficiently calculate metrics for transit agencies. The daily aggregation method is more accurate than the weekly aggregation method, both introduced in this thesis, but practical limitations on processing time favor the weekly method. The reliability of GTFS feed data for smaller agencies is less conclusive than that of larger agencies because of discrepancies found in smaller agencies when their GTFS-generated metrics were compared to those in the NTD. This research will be of particular interest to transit and policy analysts, researchers and transit planners.

Real-time information that informs transit riders about transit schedules, next bus or train arrivals, and service alerts, is becoming increasingly available, particularly through internet-enabled smartphone applications. However, the extent of communication technology usage amongst transit riders, specifically their access to mobile applications and alternative technologies that can provide real-time information, is largely unknown. Without this information, transit agencies are risking investing in an alternative technology that may not sufficiently supply real-time information to as many as possible riders. The purpose of this study is to identify the differences in individual technology accessibility and prioritize investing in real-time information application development that mirrors the unique characteristics of transit riders. This recognition and development will allow a wider availability of real-time information amongst transit riders. Paired with an investigation of cellular phone usage among transit riders and the general American population, an analysis of Saint Louis Metro’s Onboard Survey was performed. Cross tabulations and chi-squared tests were conducted to examine riders’ communication technology usage. Binary logit models were used to understand how, and whether, the ownership of smartphone applications is dependent on various demographic factors. These analyses identified specific demographic groups that would benefit from supplemental technology methods more conducive to their particular information accessibility. Results showed that communication technology usage has risen substantially in recent years but a portion of riders are still without access to smartphone applications. Specific demographic groups (e.g., riders over 40 years of age) were less likely to own smartphones, and these results indicate that computer-based websites and IVR are the best supplementary alternatives for those groups.

As the transportation sector fully integrates information technology, transit agencies face decisions that expose them to new technologies, relationships and risks. Accompanying a rise in transit-related web and mobile applications, a set of competing real-time transit data standards from both public and private organizations have emerged. The purpose of this research is to understand the standard-setting processes for these data standards and the forces that move the transit industry towards the widespread adoption of a data standard. This project will analyze through case studies and interviews with members of standard-setting organizations the development of three real-time transit data standards: (1) the development of the General Transit Feed Specification Realtime (GTFS-realtime), (2) the Service Interface for Real Time Information (SIRI), and (3) Transit Communications Interface Profiles (TCIP). The expected outcome of this research is an assessment of federal policy on standards development as well as an analysis of current and future trends in this sector—both technical and institutional. The results will inform federal transit policy and future action in standards-setting and intelligent transportation systems (ITS) requirements, identifying the potential catalysts that will increase the effectiveness of federal- and agency-level programs.

This study examines the reasons behind the decline in public transport patronage in Melbourne between 1950 and 1990, through a comparison with Toronto. The share of urban travel undertaken by public transport has declined since the Second World War in all developed countries, but public transport patronage in Melbourne appears to have declined more rapidly than in most other industrialised cities. Public transport has, however, gained or held ground in Toronto, where the form of development is similar in many ways to Melbourne. Most accounts of Toronto’s success (particularly in Australia) regard transport/land-use integration as the critical factor. The contrasting analysis maintains that Melbourne’s urban form has changed over this period to a dispersed, car-oriented pattern. This study evaluates a different interpretation of the ‘Toronto model’. This is that Toronto has undergone similar urban changes to Melbourne since the war, but has found a way of operating public transport successfully in a relatively dispersed environment. The contrast with Melbourne, then, is not primarily in land-use patterns, but in policies towards the operation of public transport.

Governments around the world are investing heavily in smart card infrastructure to enhance transport services. Studies show that smart card technology can improve reliability, reduce maintenance costs, provide a longer life span, and allow more applications to be incorporated in a transit card. As a result, policy makers and transport owners are interested in extending the use of smart cards from transit to non-transit systems to capitalise on their investment. However, little is known about the conditions under which customers would adopt transit cards for non-transit transactions. In Singapore, a contactless transit smart card (ez-link card) was launched in April 2002 to replace the magnetic stored-value card, which was commissioned in December 1990. The ez-link card was introduced as an integrated public transport card for use both on buses and Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) and Light Rail Transit (LRT) trains. This study was undertaken to evaluate customers' response to the use of the ez-link card for non-transit transactions. As the ez-link card is an information technology (IT) product and the first of its kind in the Singapore public transport system, there is a need to understand and appreciate how customers would respond to the change in its use. Various theories and models such as the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Theory of Diffusion (TD), Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) and Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) were reviewed for their potential to understand and predict customers' intentions to use the ez-link card for non-transit transactions. After much review, the TPB was adopted for identifying the research model and hypotheses in this study. The TPB was used to develop the research model and hypotheses comprising one dependent variable (intention – INT) and three independent variables (attitude - ATT, subjective norm - SN and perceived behavioral control - PBC). The TPB was also used to design the questionnaire comprising 16 items to collect data from customers using the ez-link card at bus interchanges and train stations located around Singapore. A pilot survey was conducted on 21 respondents using the intercept interview technique. The data were collected and analysed. With slight modifications, the questionnaire was then used with 300 respondents in the final survey. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data collected from 293 respondents (seven were outliers) using the intercept interview technique in the final survey. Regression analysis explained 80% of the variance in the customers' intention to use the ez-link card for non-transit transactions. While the results provided initial support for the TPB, further examination of the data using exploratory factor analysis revealed high correlations between the ATT and SN. This study concluded that a more parsimonious model would only extract two independent variables (Desirability - DES and Perceived Convenience – PEC) to predict customers' intention to use the ez-link card for non-transit transactions. DES and PEC were used to develop a new