Improving Demand Modeling in California's Rail Transit System

This paper analyzes urban rail-fare elasticity and compares the results across four California transit systems. A method of Internet search is adopted to collect monthly transit-fare records from 2002 to 2013. This paper contributes towards improving demand modeling for public transit using more precise and monthly data and applies econometric techniques involving autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) and panel data models. Results show that demand for public transit in California is very inelastic. Any ridership promotion policy may have a heterogeneous impact across transit systems.

University: 
Mineta Consortium for Transportation Mobility
San José State University
Principal Investigator: 
Rui Liu, PhD
PI Contact Information: 

rui.liu@sjsu.edu
San José State University

Project Number: 
1736

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CSUTC
MCTM
NTFC
NTSC

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