Mapping Potential Metro Rail Ridership in Los Angeles County 2013

摘要

Los Angeles County, is coping with increasing street and highway traffic. Public transit, and particularly rail, often is regarded as a strategy to help reduce urban traffic congestion, and growing awareness of global climate change. The objectives of this paper are to identi fy the potential ridership and current utilization of the Metro Rail System of Los Angeles County using the process of "Trip Generation," to support visual planning about public transit. The potential ridership produced and attracted to each station was es timated using Origin -Destination (O- D) flow patterns from residential and employment regions. Estimation of the number of potential riders accessing the Metro Rail System involves a spatial analysis of the location of current Metro Rail stations serving po pulations in a reasonable access time by walking. Service Area Zones (SAZ) then were delineated and mapped to indicate the areas that the potential riders could be served by existing stations within a ten minute walking interval. The potential ridership was measured to be approximately one million, a figure ten times larger than the present level of Metro Rail utilization. The analysis results across stations were compiled into the Atlas of Potential Metro Rail Ridership for the purpose of ridership promotion, system forecasting, and service planning.