A Pilot Project Will Explore How to Make Transit Easier for Riders in California
Conference in Davis begins process of exploring what it will take to make transit "seamless" for riders
Among the recent allocations of transportation funds from the gas tax, S.B. 1, was money for a pilot project to integrate transit services in California. Three regional transit agencies—Capitol Corridor, San Joaquin Regional Transit District, and Los Angeles-San Diego-San Luis Obispo Rail Corridor Agency (LOSSAN)—will team up with seven as-yet-undecided connecting transit agencies to work on creating a “seamless” experience for transit riders.
The pilot program was included within an $80 million grant made to the Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority, which is the responsible agency on the pilot program. In total, $27 million will be available to fund the five-year pilot that can offer lessons and practices that can be expanded to the rest of the state.
The notion of a “seamless” transit trip—wherein a transit rider can effortlessly travel across regional boundaries among different transit agencies and using various modes—is a vision that has long eluded California. But it is becoming a reality in other places, with various levels of success, and there’s no reason it can’t happen here.
At least, there is no technological reason it can’t happen. That was a big take-away from the California Integrated Travel Conference convened by the California State Transportation Agency (CalSTA) this week, which set out to jump start the pilot. The technology exists to make riding transit as simple and easy as driving a car—or maybe easier—and it is being used in Europe and elsewhere.
Another take-away was that, in places that have been finding ways to integrate ticketing or scheduling—or just make it easier to figure out and ride transit—ridership has increased, bucking the U.S. trend of declining numbers of transit riders. And in some cases agencies have been able to increase revenue as well.
Most of these changes have happened in the last five to ten years, in Hong Kong, Sweden, Norway, and London, among others.
Riders already know what is wrong with transit in California. Anyone who has tried to plan a regional point-to-point trip, even with the increasing usefulness of trip planners like Google Maps, has had the experience of throwing up their hands in defeat. It always looks easier—and faster and cheaper—to take a car. But that’s not necessarily the case—and it doesn’t have to look that way.
At the conference, representatives from Transport for London, Norway, and Sweden talked about their transit systems’ increasingly sophisticated use of ticketless transit payment systems and coordinated schedules. The message was that those systems faced many difficult obstacles, but with commitment found a way around them, and are succeeding—and that California can do the same.
California’s challenges are many. The state has hundreds of transit agencies but there is no overseeing agency that sets rules. Even Caltrans, which is responsible for doling out federal and state transit moneys, has only recently formulated a Statewide Transit Strategic Plan, and even then the state has struggled to figure out its role vis-a-vis transit.
Public transit in California also has a mandate to serve everyone, unlike private companies that can pick and choose, and market to, specific customers. That brings other challenges that not every place has had to face—in Sweden, for example, smart phones are ubiquitous, so payment systems using smart phones are useful to most riders. In California, however, transit agencies have to be able to serve people who don’t have phones, credit cards, or bank accounts.
These are not insurmountable difficulties. As presenters repeated, these are simply technological questions. And coming up with a solution to them should be “agnostic” anyway, as pointed out by Jonathan Donovan of Masabi, a private company that develops transit apps. “We don’t even know what platform people will be using five or ten years from now.”
A big question at the conference was about the role of the state. Should it just pass out funding? Should it have a governing role, or a guiding role? Should it function as an information clearinghouse, or should it handle data and create specific information standards for sharing among agencies?
The question was not answered, because figuring it out will be one of the functions of the forthcoming pilot program. Whether the five-year pilot is successful, and even if not—a mantra at the conference was “fail fast” so as to learn quickly from mistakes—what lessons it learns will be useful and expandable to other agencies and groups of agencies throughout the state.
“This is a dialogue,” said Chad Edison of CalSTA, who is helping lead the effort. “There are many different directions the project can go. It could be about fare integration, or service integration, or data sharing, or all of that. The question for us is, what can be addressed now?”
The pressure is immense. Ridership is dropping, congestion is increasing, and while California is investing more money in transit—hurray!—it is also investing in making it easier and faster to get around by private car.
Transit agencies know they need to change, and that it won’t be easy. Jennifer Bergener of LOSSAN described a “tribal” mindset among transit agencies that slows down collaboration. Carsten Puls of DB Engineering, who has worked on German transit systems and on California High Speed Rail, commented on the “greatly increased ridership” that came with fare and service integration in Germany. “It’s about a mindset,” he said. “Transit agencies have to understand that integration is not going to cannibalize their services—instead it will help them grow.”
Jesse Waas of TriMet in Portland offered an interesting example of how objections can be overcome. That agency created a fare system somewhat similar to one in London that automatically chooses the least expensive fare, adjusting it as riders use the system throughout the day. The result has been that riders don’t have to spend any time figuring out whether to invest in a day pass, a weekly pass, or a single fare—making the decision process moot.
The result has also been increased ridership. While an agency might believe that offering every rider the cheapest fare possible would cost them money, the fact is that they end up making more money simply because the entire process is less irritating to riders.
“Customers do not want to be confronted with the complexity of transit systems,” said Waas, “and we have the technology to isolate them from it.” Uber and Lyft have been highly successful in part because they recognize—and have been able to capitalize on—the importance of convenience.
CalSTA’s Edison said that while there is definitely a need to develop common standards and consistency among agencies, “this is not about getting rid of competition—it’s about opening up possibilities and offering help.”
What form all this will take in California will become more clear as the pilot program takes shape.
“This is an opportunity for California to learn from other systems,” said Edison, “and to leapfrog to the state of the art.”
Many of the transit systems that have successfully adopted better integrated systems went through a process of evolution to get there, he added. “We expect an evolution throughout the state as well.”
Small cities have locked itself into rail construction frenzy, a transportation technology that is expensive and
obsolete. On the other hand, while buses could move more people
at a further array of destinations at a lower cost, US cities of less than a million or half a million people seem hell bent on milking the taxpayer for ever complicated transit schemes. It makes sense if you believe the purpose of transit is to serve people who need it rather than to try to socially engineer people out of their cars WHICH YOU could never build enough to serve. We whine about subsidies to both driving and transit, the difference is if subsidies to driving disappeared the costs would be absorbed mildly by the drivers, if subsidies to transit disappeared the industry would collapse. Smaller communities are completely replacing public transit with ride-hailing services, and this may expand when people realize that subsidies to Uber can cost taxpayers less than subsidies to traditional transit systems. Transit agencies should stop building rail transit in cities small enough they don’t justify it. Buses made rail transit obsolete nearly 100 years ago. Cities don’t need to be saddled with billions of dollars of debt from the decisions of politicians who shook hands with transit lobbyists and rail consortiums. Transit agencies should make the priority of paying down their debts and public health and pension obligations rather than saddle future taxpayers with debt.
I like how you say “the only reason transit is up in Canada is gas is more expensive” then list a couple more reasons why transit is up in Canada (transit system is in better shape and growth management laws). To say Canada is different than the US so stop looking at it for potential solutions is silly, self-defeating, and myopic. All the reasons that transit is up in Canada could also be applied to the US. We aren’t that special that we cannot learn from other parts of the world, including our next door neighbor.
The valley floor between Compton and Bakersfield has a marginally higher population density than France, although the population is actually concentrated along the 99 corridor, so the density where the people are is actually even higher.
Seattles Light rail has increased 6.5% since last year. It’s commuter rail has grown by a mesely 0.5%. But this growth wasn’t enough to make up for the decline in bus
ridership, so overall ridership fell by 0.5 percent. Ridership in
Houston, the other major region sometimes considered to be an exception,
fell by 2.9%.
Contrary to claims that only buses are losing and rail is at least
holding its own, all major modes of transit lost riders in March. Buses
lost 6.3%; light rail 5.7%; heavy rail 5.3%; and commuter rail 3.3%.
Despite recent openings of several streetcar lines, streetcars lost 14.2
percent and lines that the FTA classifies as “hybrid rail,” including
rail lines in Austin, Portland, and a few other cities, lost 11.6%.
Even gasoline, which is 10% more expensive than last year had no effect on automotive use. And the decline continues. Nationwide transit ridership in January 2018
was 2.5 percent less than in January 2017, according to the latest National Transit Database numbers posted by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA).
Ride sharing services have obliterated transit effectiveness.
With declining ridership, growing costs, and increasing competition, the
nation’s transit industry is on the verge of inevitable collapse. The
trends leading to this collapse appear to be permanent, yet transit
officials across the country are pretending they are only temporary.
Instead of preparing for the collapse, they are simply seeking more
subsidies.
Ridership has also stayed steady or gone up in Seattle, Phoenix and Houston.
On the other hand, when given a choice between rail and bus the public chooses rail. More comfortable, free WiFi, faster. And don’t denigrate Canada just because it is smaller. Toronto has more population than Chicago.
This is like those who say that high speed rail will never work in the US because our population density is lower than Europe. Nobody is planning to go transcontinental with HSR. Chuck out everything east of the Sierras and half way across the plains. What is left has about the same density as Europe and lots of population.
Canada only has three cities with more than 1 million people, Toronto,
Ottawa and Montreal (with a combined daily ridership of 2.6 million;The US has ten. Canada has 11 cities with more than half a million
people, the US has 44. Canada only has 53 cities with 100,000 or more
people in it, The US has over 300. It’s apples to oranges. Saying that
transit is growing in Just three Canada cities is saying a mole is
getting bigger. The only reason transit is up in Canada is gas is more
expensive, it’s average is $2.80 in the US, Canada gas is $4.60, I have
friends in Michigan, who remark of Canadian US-Canada commuters who
only fill up on the US side even with bridge tolls; they bring the jugs.
Granted Canada’s transit systems are in a better shape than ours,
that’ll change sooner or later. Rail infrastructure on average has a 30
year life expectancy. Once the track hit’s 30 years old you either have
to replace it or painstakingly refurbish it. Another reason Canada is
transit friendly is because it’s growth unfriendly because of growth
management laws. Vancouver has been practicing growth-management
planning at least since 1966; surprise they have some of the least
affordable housing in the nation. But those that don’t live in
cities….i.e. most of Canadians, when ride sharing services grow,
transit ridership will decline. Ride-sharing services: have eaten away
at nearly half of all new transit riders Maybe these three cities it
will grow as needed.
But ride sharing providers have all but eaten away
at transits market share. Even urban millennial’s, the most car hating
group of tattooed, starbucks loving hipsters, have basically swarmed
ride hailing services. This is why it is important to begin now to plan
the transition from publicly subsidized transit and massive urban rail
projects in cities without the population to a small scale or privatize transit and offer subsidies to the people that need it rather than the agencies directly who have nothing but incentive to chase expensive projects. Demand
oriented or privatized transit services. This means the industry should
stop building new rail lines; replace most existing rail lines with
buses as they wear out; pay down debts and unfunded obligations if any;
and target any further subsidies to low-income people rather than
continue a futile crusade trying to attract higher-income people out of
their cars. 70% of Canada’s electricity is carbon free
(hydroelectric/nuclear) so an electric car Carpool or urban ridesharing
service would do really well there.
Declining transit ridership is purely a US phenomenon. It’s not happening in Canada, which is geographically and culturally similar to us. It’s not happening in the few US cities like Seattle that are investing wisely in transit. If you provide useful transit services, people will ride it.
Google “casual carpool” or go to http://sfcasualcarpool.com/routes
for an example of this system. My understanding is that this web site
is entirely run by volunteers. Note in particular the “etiquette” page with the informal rules that have naturally developed with this system. After initially trying to shut this system down to try to force
riders to take public transit it now appears that the metropolitan
transport commission for the bay area is beginning to realize this is a
viable transit option. It should be encourage and see how it develops.
Taking ques from public opinion is good. But reality is transit ridership is declining
almost everywhere in the United States, partly because there are
increasing alternatives to transit that are more convenient, including increased auto ownership and ride sharing. Mainly because they’ve put off repairing their current stock The Journal of Public Transportation has devoted a whole issue to the future of transit, as if to reassure the industry that it has one. Government employee unions are freaking out about the upcoming Janus v.
AFSCME case ruling in the US Supreme Court. The predicted ruling
against the union will severely reduce union cash which will lead to a
reduction in graft. Without the cash, politicians will no longer have
an incentive to fund government collective transit boondoggles.
The pressure is immense. Ridership is dropping, congestion is increasing, and while California is investing more money in transit—hurray!—it is also investing in making it easier and faster to get around by private car.
This issue can’t be given enough consideration. As long as agencies are simultaneously undercutting transit as they make investments into it, usage is going to stagnate. Stop spending money making it easier to drive in the exact same corridors where the goal is to make transit more useful and instead, use the money for transit. Or better yet, just don’t use it at all and we all get to enjoy lower taxes.
This is good news. I remember the days of referring back and forth to and from paper schedules to plan a trip using several public transit agencies and making sure that I had the exact fare for each transit agency to put in the farebox. The Clipper Card, 511.org and the Internet have greatly streamlined that process. Glad to hear that transit providers will be taking the next step. A good idea would be to make it possible to tag onto the Capitol Corridor with your Clipper Card.