Commuter Bus Demand, Incentives for Modal Shift, and Impact on Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Part II – Service Delivery Concepts
Funding Source: MassDOT
Title: Commuter Bus Demand, Incentives for Modal Shift, and Impact on Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Part II – Service Delivery Concepts
Date: 2019
Status: Completed
Summary: This report is a continuation of a project to model and evaluate the potential to reducegreenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by expanding express commuter bus services in the GreaterBoston area. First, data for socioeconomic factors in the CTPS travel demand model arecollected to improve model accuracy. Second, additional data (including household incomeand industry sector of employment) for each commuting corridor are used to explain theremaining variations in the data. The revised model is used to evaluate the impact of runningbuses in dedicated lanes or on highway shoulders, and to evaluate the effect of commuter busstop location on the attractiveness for access by walking or driving. The impacts of shoulderrunning and bus stop location are then evaluated for the corridors with the greatest potential toreduce GHG per dollar of cost, which include Framingham-Boston CBD and Woburn-BostonCBD. The results show that bus-on-shoulder running on existing feasible shoulders canimprove bus travel times by up to 4 minutes, leading to roughly double the reduction in GHGemissions associated with new commuter bus services compared mixed traffic operations. Busstop placement within a town can affect ridership by a factor of three, primarily by affectingwalk-accessibility, and make the difference between a route causing a net reduction in GHGemissions or not.
