16-4339: B44 Select Bus Service on Nostrand Avenue: Bus Rapid Transit-Induced Mode Shift and Route Shift in Transit-Dense Brooklyn Authors’ Responses to Reviewer Comments/Questions (indicated in blue) Reviewer 1: No responses Reviewer 2: It would be helpful to have baseline data for changes in employment in the area Some demographic data is discussed in the Project Background section, though no comparison between before and after demographics is made. The authors didn’t include data on employment changes because it is unlikely to shed light on the relevant piece of the ridership puzzle. The B44 gained ridership at the expense of other buses that run along the very same corridors. If employment was a factor, it would likely have affected all of the nearby bus routes. The text should also describe any advertising or promotional efforts and indicate whether there were any changes to fares, parking rates, etc. Even if these things show no correlation with the changes in ridership it will help to isolate the factors that account for the observed results. Public-focused efforts can be better described as community outreach, rather than promotion. The authors consider these efforts to be part of the general process of notifying bus customers, store owners, and citizens about changes relevant to their community and their commutes. Language was added to the end of the Transit Operations subsection of the Implementation section to reflect this. There were no changes to transit fares or parking rates, though parking regulations were changed, as explained in first paragraph of the Curb Management and Signal Changes subsection in the Street Design and Traffic Operations section. Was there a change in the number of peak period standees? MTA does not officially record this data, and because any calculations based on number of seats and ridership would be at best estimations, the authors chose not to include these statistics. However, the authors hypothesize that the switch to larger buses with more seats has probably decreased crowding and the proportion of standees. Some language was added to the last paragraph of the Transit Operations subsection to reflect this. There is an extensive literature dealing with elasticity of demand for transit service. This paper would be improved by referring to that work. Is there reason to think the value of the travel time savings are sufficiently large to explain the increase in ridership for B44 SBS relative to other routes in the area? The authors added a Literature Review subsection in the Introduction section, just before the Project Background subsection to briefly discuss the elasticity of demand literature. The authors believe the travel time savings is one of the primary reasons for the recent increases in ridership, though increased comfort and information likely also play significant roles in attracting riders. However, the statistical examination of the relative importance of these factors in generating new ridership is considered outside the scope of this paper.
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16-4339: B44 Select Bus Service on Nostrand Avenue: Bus Rapid Transit-Induced Mode Shift and
Route Shift in Transit-Dense Brooklyn
Authors’ Responses to Reviewer Comments/Questions (indicated in blue)
Reviewer 1:
No responses
Reviewer 2:
It would be helpful to have baseline data for changes in employment in the area
Some demographic data is discussed in the Project Background section, though no
comparison between before and after demographics is made. The authors didn’t include data
on employment changes because it is unlikely to shed light on the relevant piece of the
ridership puzzle. The B44 gained ridership at the expense of other buses that run along the
very same corridors. If employment was a factor, it would likely have affected all of the
nearby bus routes.
The text should also describe any advertising or promotional efforts and indicate whether there were
any changes to fares, parking rates, etc. Even if these things show no correlation with the changes in
ridership it will help to isolate the factors that account for the observed results.
Public-focused efforts can be better described as community outreach, rather than promotion.
The authors consider these efforts to be part of the general process of notifying bus
customers, store owners, and citizens about changes relevant to their community and their
commutes. Language was added to the end of the Transit Operations subsection of the
Implementation section to reflect this. There were no changes to transit fares or parking rates,
though parking regulations were changed, as explained in first paragraph of the Curb
Management and Signal Changes subsection in the Street Design and Traffic Operations
section.
Was there a change in the number of peak period standees?
MTA does not officially record this data, and because any calculations based on number of
seats and ridership would be at best estimations, the authors chose not to include these
statistics. However, the authors hypothesize that the switch to larger buses with more seats
has probably decreased crowding and the proportion of standees. Some language was added
to the last paragraph of the Transit Operations subsection to reflect this.
There is an extensive literature dealing with elasticity of demand for transit service. This paper would
be improved by referring to that work. Is there reason to think the value of the travel time savings are
sufficiently large to explain the increase in ridership for B44 SBS relative to other routes in the area?
The authors added a Literature Review subsection in the Introduction section, just before the
Project Background subsection to briefly discuss the elasticity of demand literature. The
authors believe the travel time savings is one of the primary reasons for the recent increases
in ridership, though increased comfort and information likely also play significant roles in
attracting riders. However, the statistical examination of the relative importance of these
factors in generating new ridership is considered outside the scope of this paper.
The paper describes impressive improvements in bus speed but there is no discussion of whether
similar improvements were achieved for on-time performance/schedule adherence. It would also be
helpful to know if headways were improved as part of this effort.
The B44 Limited/SBS schedule was not altered as part of the immediate conversion to Select
Bus Service. Although the buses serving the route got larger, buses have not been added to
the route, so headways have remained unaltered. Before and after on-time performance
comparisons are difficult because GPS-based methods that are currently used were not
available before construction began on the project corridors.
Though it goes a little beyond the scope of the paper it would be interesting to include a few of the
standard transit performance metrics such as boardings per service hour and operating cost per
boarding.
The authors agree that reporting these metrics is beyond the scope of the paper, and would be
difficult to fit in.
Reviewer 3:
A literature review needs to be included in the paper covering findings by others in relation to SBS or
similar implementations and/or research on this mode.
The authors added a Literature Review subsection in the Introduction section, just before the
Project Background subsection to briefly discuss the effects of similar Select Bus Service
implementations.
Figures need to be mentioned in the text in advance of their presentation.
The authors have tried to balance data presentation and the discussion of that data, often
opting to place the visuals first within a given section.
Some of the streets mentioned in the text are not shown in Figure 1 and this makes it difficult for
readers to interpret the figure.
Relevant labels have been added and street name mentions removed where applicable.
Page 7 line 14 - should Figure 4 read Figure 3?
Fixed
Although the authors say they will compare before and after data, the actual measurement data seems
very limited e.g. the actual ridership levels in 2011 are not shown - only those after implementation
are mentioned with some general statements in percentage terms as to how they compare with the
pre- situation. Such general statements are not satisfactory in terms of presentation of research
output.
Additional raw-number statistics have been added to the ridership data section to address this.
Figure 6 gives average values for travel times but no detail is given about how many times travel
time was measured and over what period, and the relevant statistics behind those measurements e.g.
what the range was.
The travel time results were obtained using cell-phone probe data. This is mentioned in the
Assessment Methodology section. Though fine-grained data is provided, it is aggregated for
the protection of the privacy of individuals. For this reason, the exact number and timing of
trips is not known. Data on the range and distribution of these data points has been added to
the General Traffic Travel Time subsection of the Results Section.
Some additional validation of the statements on page 11 e.g. 'are likely attributable' need to be
provided.
The phrase has been removed and data on the factors contributing to travel time savings has
been added. The paper’s purpose is to present travel time, volume, and ridership changes
more generally, and to discuss their implications for route and mode shift, not to establish the
root causes for travel time changes.
The paragraph on Page 12 is not at all clear. Explain more fully what this statement means ' in the
absence of borough wide traffic volume data, the volume reductions on Nostrand Avenue are
compared with the volume changes on neighboring parallel streets'.
Traffic volumes were collected before and after implementation on Nostrand Avenue and
parallel alternative southbound streets in order to assess whether vehicles shifted from
Nostrand onto those streets.
Further into the paragraph, the statement ‘A good case can therefore be made for diversion from
Nostrand southbound in the PM’ again is not clear.
The fact that volumes decreased on Nostrand Avenue and increased on parallel southbound
streets provides evidence for route shift from Nostrand onto those streets after project
implementation.
Detail on the measurement program used to measure the travel times presented in Figure 9 and the
accompanying statistics need to be included.
The nature and source of this data is briefly discussed in the Assessment Methodology
section, and additional statistics are provided in the General Traffic Travel Time subsection
of the Results Section.
Safran, Beaton, Thompson, Wan, Chiarmonte, and Joseph 1
B44 Select Bus Service on Nostrand Avenue: Bus Rapid Transit-Induced Mode Shift and 1
Route Shift in Transit-Dense Brooklyn 2
3 Original Submission Date: 7/31/2015 4 5 Corresponding Author: 6 Jeremy S. Safran 7 New York City Department of Transportation 8 55 Water Street, 6th Floor 9 New York, NY 10041 10 Phone: 212-839-7727 11 Email: [email protected] 12 13 Co-Authors (alphabetical): 14 15 Eric B. Beaton 16 New York City Department of Transportation 17 55 Water Street, 6th Floor 18 New York, NY 10041 19 Phone: 212-839-6697 20 Email: [email protected] 21 22 Robert Thompson 23 MTA New York City Transit 24 2 Broadway, 17
th Floor 25
New York, NY 10004 26 Phone: 646-252-5623 27 Email: [email protected] 28 29 Dan Wan 30 Department of Civil Engineering, City College of New York 31 160 Convent Avenue, Marshak Building, Suite MR-910 32 New York, NY 10031 33 Phone: 212-650-8071 34 Email: [email protected] 35 36 Jonathan Joseph 37 MTA New York City Transit 38 2 Broadway, 17
th Floor 39
New York, NY 10004 40 Phone: 646-252-5526 41 Email: [email protected] 42 43 Joseph Chiarmonte 44 MTA New York City Transit 45 2 Broadway, 17
th Floor 46
New York, NY 10004 47 Phone: 646-252-5639 48 Email: [email protected] 49 50 51 52