Thesis (M. Soc. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1985.

Public transportation projects are some of the most complex and costly components of urban development. While urban sites may develop naturally through the combined and only partially coordinated efforts of countless private groups, they inevitably reach a critical mass which requires the development of a shared infrastructure. While this problem is not unique to the modern era, the size, density, and intensity of modern urban uses demands a level of advanced and extensive transportation infrastructure that is unprecedented. The extreme costliness and impact of this infrastructure makes its design and implementation a difficult and controversial matter, particularly when divergent strategies are possible. Mass transit is not the predominant mode of travel for most twenty first century Americans. Before the automobile era, however, transit modes of all types graced the country’s cities, providing a level of service unmatched by most modern transit systems through high frequency and dense routes. This research investigates the transportation history of Seattle, a prominent but relatively young American city, to determine the critical cultural, political and social factors which led that city to redevelop its transit systems successfully after their initial dismantlement during the early car era. The research will focus on the unique trends which allowed Seattle to avoid the transit stagnation of other cities in the mid to late twenty-first century. Seattle’s contemporary transit conditions are summarized through the use of spatial and survey data and compared to transit conditions from the peak of the historic streetcar era. Contemporary transportation planning documents and processes are considered to yield insight into the unique transportation planning culture of the Seattle region. Finally, the region’s urban and transportation history is reviewed to identify and track the processes most responsible for the city’s relative success in developing modern transit when compared to similar cities.

published_or_final_version / Public Administration / Master / Master of Social Sciences

The projected growth of persons ages 65 and older in the U.S. over the next few decades will usher in an era of unprecedented numbers of seniors licensed to drive. For some members of this group, there will come a time where driving will have to cease due to a variety of factors. At that juncture in their lives, these seniors may have to consider transportation alternatives other than the personally operated vehicle. The objective of this study is to evaluate potential changes in transit market share arising from travel behavior changes of seniors who lose their driving privileges. This includes determining seniors interest in, ability to, and subsequent use of public transit. First, a literature review of developments that have impacted senior travel behavior is presented. Developments such as the changing demographics of seniors, senior socio-economic status, the process of driving retirement, and factors influencing transit use by seniors are presented. Estimates of the numbers of licensed and former drivers are derived for the year 2030 using several methodological approaches. Trip rates are applied to the predicted non-driving population to derive estimates of the potential demand for transit and subsequent market share. Discussion of the estimated market share results also incorporates a descriptive overview of senior travel behavior as derived from analyses of publicly available datasets followed by focus group results illustrating the experiences of seniors and their transportation choices.Recommendations range from transit agencies engaging in direct "generational" marketing to seniors in order to understand their transportation needs as well as perceptions about transit, promoting the use of transit, and demonstrating the viability of transit for specific trip purposes and partner with rideshare providers. Despite the predicted increase in transit market shares attributable to the senior population, transit providers have extensive work to do to change the perceptions of transit service provision and subsequently encourage the use of such services by senior populations in forthcoming generations if transit is to become a viable transportation alternative for those seniors ceasing to drive.

American households spend over $30 billion on tourism and take over 177 million long-distance leisure trips each year. These trips, and the subsequent vehicle miles traveled, have a significant impact on the transportation systems at major destinations across the country, especially those destinations that are still improving their transportation systems. Surprisingly, not much is known related to this type of travel. This dissertation expands the current knowledge of tourism travel behavior, in terms of how people make decisions regarding long-distance leisure activities and time use. Specifically, this dissertation develops and comprehensively examines a behavioral framework for household tourism time use and activity patterns. This framework combines (and builds upon) theory and methods from both transportation and tourism research fields such that it can be used to improve tourism demand modeling. This framework takes an interdisciplinary approach to describe how long distance leisure travelers allocate and maximize their time use across various types of activities. It also considers the many levels of tourism time use and activity patterns, including the structuring the broad annual leisure activity and time budget, forming individual tourism trips within the defined budget, and selecting specific activities and timing during each distinct tourism trip. Subsequently, this dissertation will additionally apply the time use and activity participation behavioral framework to four critical tourism research topics to demonstrate how the tourism behavioral framework can effectively be used to provide behavioral insights into some of the most commonly studied critical tourism issues. These application topics include household participation in broad tourism travel activities, travel parties’ tourism destination and travel mode selection, individuals’ loyalty towards daily and tourism activities, and travel parties’ participation in combinations of specific tourism trip activities. These application studies incorporate a variety of data sources, decision makers, study scales, situation-appropriate modeling techniques, and economic/individual/environmental factors to capture all aspects of the decision and travel activity-making process. / text

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This report outlines five criteria common to successful value capture programs that support transit; 1) predictable need/unmet demand, 2) authority and capacity to achieve policy adoption and implementation, 3) the financial feasibility of the project, 4) the level of concurrent planning that support the project and lastly 5) the projects level of significance. This report will focus on a logical approach to evaluating the possibility of employing a value capture strategy within the jurisdiction of the Berkeley-Charleston- Dorchester Council of Governments (BCDCOG) using the given criteria. The suggested value capture strategy that emerges from this evaluation recognizes the existing and potential value capture mechanisms that could support a regionally significant transit project if budgeting and select revenues are synergized in the context of the regional plan. / text

published_or_final_version / Urban Studies / Master / Master of Social Sciences

No description available.

Transportation Asset Management (TAM) systems are in use at many transportation agencies both in the United States and around the world. These asset management systems serve as strategic resource allocation frameworks and their degree of implementation and maturity varies. Climatic change, with its potentially adverse impacts on both the built and natural environments, has become of increasing concern around the globe. Given the uncertainties associated with changing climatic conditions, transportation agency stakeholders utilize risk-based decision-making approaches to identify climate change impacts that pose the greatest risk to transportation infrastructure assets. In conjunction with criticality assessments, emerging conceptual frameworks seek to identify higher-risk infrastructure assets, which are both critical to system operations and vulnerable to potential climate change impacts, through standalone study efforts. This research develops a risk-oriented decision-making framework to identify vulnerable, higher-risk transportation infrastructure assets within the context of existing transportation asset management systems. The framework assesses the relative maturity of an agency’s transportation asset management system and provides guidance as to how an agency’s existing tools and processes can be used to incorporate climate change considerations. This risk-based decision-making framework is applied to three case studies: one at the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, another at the Metropolitan Planning Commission in Savannah – Chatham County, and a statewide case study at the Georgia Department of Transportation. The results of this research demonstrate that readily-available climate projection data can be analyzed and displayed geospatially so that the potential impacts of climatic change on transportation infrastructure can be determined for specific geographic regions. In addition, existing roadway and bridge infrastructure datasets can also be displayed geospatially. The framework uses geospatially-referenced roadway and bridge asset data and multi-criteria decision analysis procedures to develop and visually display criticality scores. Overlaying climate projection data and criticality data helps identify higher-risk transportation infrastructure assets. This research demonstrates that climate change considerations can be effectively incorporated in existing decision-making processes at various levels of maturity of formal TAM systems, making this more broadly accessible to agencies and communities with potential climate hazards.