Examining the Influence of Urban form and Land Use on Bus Ridership in Montreal

Abstract

The prevalence of sub urban life in North American cities in the recent decades has resulted in increased private vehicle usage while reducing public transportation system usage. An oft suggested alternative to reduce the negative externalities of the personal vehicle use is the development of an efficient public transportation system that provides equitable service and accessibility to the population as well as contributes to the reduction of air pollution and GHG emissions. The emphasis of this study is on a systems perspective where transit ridership is studied from the perspective of the transit provider, with the objective of quantifying the influence of transit system operational attributes, transportation system infrastructure attributes and built environment attributes on the disaggregate stop level boardings and alightings for the bus network in the Montreal region. A Composite Marginal Likelihood (CML) based ordered response probit (ORP) model that simultaneously allows to incorporate the influence of exogenous variables along and potential correlations between boardings and alightings a r multiple time periods examined is employed Our results illustrate that headway impacts ridership negatively, while the presence of public transportation around the stop has a positive and significant effect. Moreover, parks, commerces, and residential area, amongst others, impact boardings and alightings at different bus stops. The results a provide transit agencies a mechanism to study the influence of transit accessibility, transit connectivity, transit schedule alterations (to increase/reduce headway), and land use pattern changes on ridership.