Measurement of Transit Benefits:

A Report to the Federal Transit Administration, June 1993

Authors: Edward Beimborn and Alan Horowitz with Julie Schuetz and Gong Zejun

Availability: Available from the U. S. Department of Transportation, Office of Technical Assistance and Safety, 400 Seventh Street S.W., Washington, DC 20590, report no. DOT-T-93-33. and from the University of Wisconsin -- Milwaukee Center for Urban Transportation Studies, P. O. Box 784, Milwaukee, WI 53201-0784, (414) 229-5787.
Related Articles: "Methods and Strategies for Transit Benefit Measurement" appears in TRB Record 1496,
"A Hierarchical Approach to the Assessment of Transit Benefits", ITE Compendium of Papers, 1993 Annual Meeting, p 327-331

Abstract of full report:

It is the objective of this report to look at benefits of public transit in a broad way to better understand of how their measurement can be used to assist in making decisions. The report provides a comprehensive view of the range of consequences of transit services and indicates various methods that can be used to assess their benefits. Benefit assessment is done to make decisions, and a general discussion is given of how to view benefits for this purpose. Consequences of transit are illustrated through the use of a benefit tree. Transit service provides an alternative means of travel, results in changes of trip making by automobile and transit, affects land use activity and leads to direct and indirect employment. These effects lead to further consequences.

Methods are provided for measuring benefits. These methods include an enhanced consumer surplus approach to measure travel related changes and a land use redistribution model to identify travel benefits of land use changes. Techniques for air pollution assessment and for employment impacts are also given in detail.