Factors that Influence Urban Streetcar Ridership in the United States

摘要

A number of streetcar lines, designed to serve as urban circulators, have been completed in thepast 15 years in the United States. Many more are either in the implementation or planningstages. Much of the previous literature on fixed-guideway ridership forecasting focuses on lightrail or regional rail lines that primarily serve commute markets, much different than the travelmarkets served by these new streetcar lines. This research seeks to improve the understanding ofthe factors that influence urban streetcar ridership. Extensive data on ridership, station areacharacteristics, route configuration, transit network connectivity and special generators werecollected for modern streetcar lines in Portland, Oregon; Seattle, Washington; and Tacoma,Washington.Regression models were used to measure the influence of different variables onridership. Three urban streetcar ridership models are presented with adjusted R Squared valuesranging from 0.74 to 0.76. Variables found to have a statistically significant influence onstreetcar ridership include feeder rail, retail and residential accessibility, distance to closeststation, free stations, start-of-line stations, and special generators including hotels, colleges,hospitals and entertainment centers.