P S Sriraj

Customer Loyalty and Chicago, Illinois, Transit Authority Buses: Results from 2008 Customer Satisfaction Survey

Customer loyalty is commonly used across sectors to measure a providers effectiveness in satisfying the needs of its market. According to the most recent Chicago, Illinois, Transit Authority (CTA) customer satisfaction survey of 2008, customer loyalty with the CTA bus had increased significantly over time. This paper looks at the key factors (service characteristics, trip attributes, and individual characteristics) associated with customer loyalty in 2008. The analysis used two methods: a quadrant analysis to highlight aspects of service in most need of improvement and a multivariate regression that attempted to explain the variance in the dependent variable bus loyalty. This variable was measured as an index of three one-to-five scale variables: how satisfied the customer was, how likely he or she was to continue riding CTA, and how likely he or she was to recommend the service to someone else. Findings provided evidence of specific ways in which the agency could increase bus loyalty in a targeted and informed manner.

Analysis of Transit Quality of Service and Employment Accessibility for the Greater Chicago, Illinois, Region

A variety of transit decision support tools have been developed in the Chicago, Illinois, metropolitan area in recent years, including the Regional Transportation Asset Management System of the Regional Transit Authority and the Spatial Decision Support System of the Urban Transportation Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Although the Chicago metropolitan area has a variety of public transportation services, the quality of service available in an area and the extent to which transit allows area residents to access employment opportunities spread out across the six-county region vary substantially. This paper focuses on a spatial analysis of the variations of local transit service quality indicators as well as a composite regional employment accessibility measure. It explores the quality of the transit system in the Chicago region through a set of supply- and demand-side indicators at the census tract level. The supply-side indicators include a composite index of transit availability and frequency and transit station asset information. The demand-side measures include the computation of the regional employment accessibility index using a gravity model and transit travel times from travel demand models. A series of these indicators is mapped over the Chicago region at the census tract level. The paper also ranks census tracts on the local transit measures, as well as on the regional transit-based employment accessibility measures, and identifies those areas that are well off and worst off in regard to both types of indexes. The paper draws policy conclusions emanating from each of these categories.

Activity and Travel Changes of Users of Job Access Transportation Service: Analysis of a User Survey

The Job Access and Reverse Commute (JARC) program of the FTA provides funding to improve the access to and from jobs for welfare recipients and low-income individuals. The objective of the study was to develop a comprehensive profile of JARC service riders on several economic, social, perceptual, and travel-related indicators on the basis of a data set that was collected by the authors from riders of fixed-route and demand-responsive services in 23 locations across the country that were funded by this program. The economic indicators considered include incomes of riders, full-and part-time work status, employment tenure, reported changes in employment status (transitioning from unemployment to employment), and changes in wages incurred after using the service. Social indicators include vehicle ownership, drivers license, and educational attainment. Where possible, JARC service riders were compared with a national sample of automobile and transit users; the data for these measures were obtained from the d...

Approach of Environmental Justice to Evaluate the Equitable Distribution of a Transit Capital Improvement Program

Environmental justice is a concept that is progressively gaining attention in the public policy arena. In its simplest form environmental justice is the notion that all populations should benefit equitably from investments financially supported by the public sector. Traditionally, public transit systems serve a diverse set of populations, and therefore equity is an important issue that transit agencies encounter. A methodology developed to evaluate equitable distribution of a transit capital improvement program is presented. Environmental justice neighborhoods are identified by demographic and economic data aggregated at the census-tract level. The neighborhoods are defined on the basis of previous equity studies and guidance materials produced by the federal government. With geographic information systems, perceived benefits of each capital project are mapped onto a layer of census tracts. Finally, the capital budget is allocated to various census tracts on the basis of spatial locations of perceived benefits each project will produce. Numerous tabular and spatial results can be generated from the methodology, such as funding ratios between environmental justice neighborhoods and non-environmental justice neighborhoods. Because of the long-term nature of capital investments, time series data should be collected and analyzed. This will allow for measuring the significance of funding ratio fluctuations in current-year programs. Ultimately, the methodology can become a decision-making aid to help transit agencies prioritize capital projects. Application of the methodology to the Chicago Transit Authority, in Chicago, Illinois, provides a context for the reader to understand the potential applications (planning- and service-related) in a better manner.

Determinants of Perceived Importance of Targeted Transportation Services for Low-Income Riders

It is generally agreed that transit services in disadvantaged neighborhoods can have potentially positive effects on the accessibility of socially excluded or economically marginalized families. The impact of transit services has been quantified by using objective measures, such as travel time, travel cost, and changes in earnings or destinations reached. Although the body of literature on this topic is exhaustive, researchers have acknowledged the importance of more subjective measures associated with trip decision making of individuals. An index of perceived service importance (PSI) was used to study the impact of the subjective dimension of trip making. Riders of transit services were surveyed, and a conceptual model of activity changes that may be enabled by the services of the Job Access Reverse Commute program was designed to facilitate the modeling process. An ordered probit model was developed to explore the relationship between PSI and sociodemographics, service type and characteristics, employme...

Individual and Neighborhood Determinants of Perceptions of Bus and Train Safety in Chicago, Illinois: Application of Hierarchical Linear Modeling

Individuals decide to use public transit in part on the basis of their perception of transit safety, which is determined by various individual and environmental factors. This paper adopts a multilevel approach to analyze how perceptions of bus and train safety in Chicago, Illinois, vary as a function of person-level characteristics—gender, age, ethnicity, income, and frequency of transit ridership—and neighborhood-level characteristics—perceived neighborhood disorder, population density, and level of poverty. Hierarchical linear modeling is applied to a unique data set that combines data from three different sources: Chicago Transit Authority data on individual-level perceptions of transit safety and individual demographics, Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy data on perceptions of neighborhood disorder at the zip code level, and U.S. Census zip code–level demographic data. Findings show that the individual-and zip code–level effects differ depending on whether the estimation predicts bus or train safety perceptions. Additionally, while higher-income individuals and African Americans report lower levels of perceived bus safety, there is an additional zip code effect: low-density and high-poverty areas and neighborhoods with high levels of disorder have significantly lower levels of perceived bus safety. Management and policy implications of the study for both the transit agency and the community in which service is being offered are discussed.

Analysis of Factors That Affect the Frequency of Truck Parking Violations in Urban Areas

It has been estimated that the illegal parking of parcel delivery vehicles is the third leading cause of urban nonrecurring congestion, behind vehicle crashes and construction. However, little has been done to investigate the causes of illegal parking by trucks and to develop mitigation strategies. As an exploratory step toward addressing truck parking problems in urban areas, this study analyzed data on truck parking citations in Chicago, Illinois, to identify factors that affected the high density of violations. A geographic information system was used to analyze hot spots. The analysis showed that parking problems were generally worse in or near downtown and became less prevalent toward the outer perimeter of the city. However, truck parking did not seem to be a serious issue in the part of the city that had been home to industrial sites for a long time. Regression analysis revealed that truck parking problems could be exacerbated by concentrations of food businesses in newly developed neighborhoods with a low density of vehicles owned by residents. This finding underscored the importance of land use plans and urban and streetscape designs that took into account trucks in neighborhoods that might not seem to generate intense truck activities. The study also found that alleys could alleviate some truck parking problems.

Choice Set Imputation: Two-Step Weighted Stratified and Hazard-Based Approach

The problem of choice set formation for decision makers is an important subject in discrete choice modeling, especially when the choice set contains a large number of elemental alternatives. In general, the choice set of an individual could be a randomly sampled choice set; however, this is claimed to be a behaviorally unacceptable practice because of the fallacious assumption of individuals’ full knowledge of potential random choices. This issue brings up the need to devise methods to logically allocate credible choice alternatives for individuals. Although the use of these methods could be dependent on specific applications, this study attempted to identify the distinction between model estimation and prediction steps in the context of residential location choice modeling. From a theoretical point of view, the paper proposes a modified weighted stratified sampling approach that is an improved version of random sampling for model estimation. The approach is believed to be a better replicate of the universal choice set than other sampling methods, and it is capable of resulting in consistent estimates even with small sample sizes. The estimated model was applied in a simulation framework with a hazard-based imputed choice set approach for prediction.

Measuring and Assessing Perceptions of Success in a Transit Agency's Stakeholder Involvement Program

Stakeholder involvement is often a legally required activity for transit agencies. Optimally this process begins at the earliest stages of any given project and involves two-way communication and interaction that can be reflected in the resulting plans or project designs. Despite federal statutes and regulations mandating meaningful public input for federal capital funding consideration, approaches to fulfill these mandates successfully remain difficult, and stakeholder involvement practices often fail to have a deep impact on planning outcomes. A gap often exists between implementation plans and the satisfaction of stakeholders. Guided by prior research and applying cognitive mapping methods, this study uses a rail line reconstruction project of the Chicago Transit Authority in Illinois as a case study to systematically understand the gap in expectations and interpretations of success among stakeholders. Findings identify four important categories of goal nonalignment that act as barriers to optimal interaction that can lead to mistrust. Conclusions identify potential solutions for bridging the gaps.

Spatial decision support system for low-income families : Relocation tool for the Chicago, Illinois, Region

Housing relocation or housing mobility is not uncommon in the United States, with the average family relocating once every 6 years. As part of this process, individuals and families take into account a variety of factors. One of the important factors is that of transportation and its availability. Various researchers have studied the impact of transportation information on relocation choice. However, the need for a structured methodology that incorporates various factors, such as transportation, has been highlighted from a study of the current practice of relocation counseling. The objectives of this paper are threefold: (a) to develop an analytical hierarchy process to rank census tracts for relocation purposes of individuals, (b) to present a prototype of the spatial decision support system (SDSS) with an example, and (c) to evaluate the impact of relocation choice of individuals by using a spatially unconstrained approach. With data from the six-county northeastern Illinois region, the SDSS is developed and showcased with the help of a sample application. Two scenarios are tested for each respondent. The first is based on only housing criteria, and the second compares all criteria in the analytical hierarchy process matrix with each other. The improvements in travel time determined from the results of the two scenarios are compared, and the results are discussed to highlight the salient features of the decision support system.