Consolidation of Bay Area Transit Agenciesdjhoward/reports/Poster... · • Common vehicle types...
Transcript of Consolidation of Bay Area Transit Agenciesdjhoward/reports/Poster... · • Common vehicle types...
SANFRANCISCO
ALAMEDA
CONTRA COSTA
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SONOMA NAPA SOLANO
SAN MATEO
SANTA CLARA
SANTA CRUZ
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SanFrancisco
Berk-eley
Rich-mond
SanRafael
Novato
Petaluma
Sonoma Napa
Vallejo
Suisun City
Fairfield
Vacaville
RioVista
Calistoga
Santa Rosa
Cloverdale
Sausalito
Pinole
Oakland
SanLeandro
Danville
Walnut Creek
ConcordBay Point
Antioch
San Ramon
Hayward
UnionCity
Fremont
Pleasanton
Dublin
DalyCity
SanMateo
Pacifica
Half Moon Bay
Pescadero
Scott Creek
RedwoodCity
MenloPark
PaloAlto
MountainView
SantaClara
SanJose
Milpitas
Edenvale
Sunnyvale
Cupertino
Los Gatos
Santa Cruz
Watsonville
Morgan Hill
GilroyLocal
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In Zones 5H, 6G, 7G
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In Zones 2G, 3G, 4H
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In Zones 4G, 5G, 5F, 6F
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In Zone 5E
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In Zones 4C, 5C, 6C
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LocalIn Zones 4B, 5B
Status Quo Potential Consolidation Scenario
Practice Area Status Quo Consolidation Scenario Mitigation of Concerns
Organization & Governance
•Independent, weakly-coordinated agencies
•MTC has responsibility, little authority•High administrative costs
•Regional transit authority (RTA) oversees all regional transit policies and decisions
•Single regional operator (RTO) for all re-gional rail, bus and ferry routes
•Local operators operate service with-in their jurisdictions
•Local decisions driven by local oper-ators
Branding •Wholly independent branding •Few non-operator branding efforts
•Clear,unifiedBayAreabrandingforalltransit operators, authorities, agencies
•Co-branding of regional brand with individual operator brands
Information for Users
•Littleregionalinfoprovidedinfield•No authoritative information source
•Unifiedinfoonvehicles,atstations•Combined open data feeds
•Nurture culture of openness•Legislation enforces access to info
Fare Structure •Non-uniform, confusing fare and trans-fer policies
•Unifiedzone-basedfarestructure•Ex:$2within1zone;$1/ea.add’lzone
•Guarantee revenue neutrality for each local agency
Schedules •Limited coordination •RTA coordinates schedules•Single software provider for scheduling
•RTAweighscostsandbenefits•RTA covers cost of software transition
Infrastructure •Poor coordination•Redundant or mismatched investments
•RTA coordinates all investments •Local operators or RTA can initiate infrastructure improvements
Procurement &Maintenance
•Fleets procured independently•Maintenance facilities not shared
•Joint procurement; shared facilities•Common vehicle types for all operators •RTA ensures all operator needs met
Funding •Not linked to performance measures•Poor incentives for agencies to innovate
•RTA controls regional funding, allocates based on performance
•Local operators control local funding•Legislation provides regional funding
In our scenario, RTA would also coordinate planning, research, data collection, data sharing, special event management & emergency preparedness.
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Consolidation of Bay Area Transit AgenciesDan Howard and Teo Wickland, UC Berkeley — City Planning 217 / Civil Engineering 250
AbstractThe San Francisco Bay Area transit system is anything but a single system. Twenty-seven
transit operators provide service in the area. The discontinuity between agencies contrib-utes to high cost, poor perceptions of service quality, and redundancy in the transit system.
We investigated the role of consolidating certain functions of these agencies in saving transit dollars, improving the passenger experience, and providing a more coherent re-gional identify for the transit system. To that end, we conducted a review of literature, fo-cusing on current issues facing transit, historical attempts at consolidation in the Bay Area, comparative examples, and identifying key elements of a consolidated system. We then interviewedtransitofficialsfromthesevenmajorBayAreatransitagenciesandMTCinan effort to understand the environment in which consolidation attempts would have to be made.
WeconcludethataunifiedfarestructureandclearBayAreabrandingmayimproveperceptions of service quality in the entire system; that regional bus and rail service could be combined into one agency to improve service quality and reduce capital and operating expenses; and that agencies should attempt to consolidate their procurement, operations and maintenance efforts to potentially eliminate redundancy and reduce cost.
However, support for many aspects of consolidation appears to be limited among area transit agencies. Respondents were concerned about loss of local control in governance andfunding;somefearedapotentiallossoflegitimacyinthepublic’sview.Manyrespon-dentsalsojustifiedtheiroppositiontoconsolidationbasedoncurrentusagepatterns,rath-er than potential usage patterns in a consolidated scenario. For example, schedule coordi-nation was sometimes described as fruitless because few riders currently transfer between systems, despite the possibility that transfers may be depressed precisely because sched-ules are uncoordinated.