What makes public transit demand management programmes successful? A systematic review of ex-post evidence

ABSTRACT

Transit crowding results in negative experiences and mode change for transit riders and operational challenges for operators. The COVID-19 pandemic initiated an ongoing transformation of how, when, and where people travel, yet the challenge of balancing demand and supply in transportation remained topical. The pandemic has also exposed the traditional approach of infrastructure expansion for being too slow to respond to the challenges of crowding in a timely manner. As such, this paper provides a systematic literature review of the ex-post studies that evaluated the impact of transit demand management strategies. The paper synthesises the findings from 13 different programmes analysed in 20 studies. It is concluded that at least within the scope of the limited number of identified ex-post studies, the practice of alternative work schedules that allow employees greater freedom when to travel is the demand management approach that can bring the most significant crowding reduction. Once that flexibility is expanded, other strategies that appeal to riders’ preferences might have a larger effect as well. The findings of this review aim to encourage transit agencies to develop collaborations with large employers that can introduce alternative work schedules.

KEYWORDS:

• Incentives
• transit demand management
• transit crowding
• transportation behavior
• alternative work schedules

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for the financial support and cooperation provided by TransLink’s New Mobility Lab that made this research possible. The findings are not reflective of TransLink’s views.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author contribution statement

The authors confirm their contribution to the paper as follows: study conception and design: Bogdan Kapatsila and Emily Grisé; data collection: Bogdan Kapatsila; analysis and interpretation of results: Bogdan Kapatsila and Emily Grisé; draft manuscript preparation: Bogdan Kapatsila and Emily Grisé. All authors reviewed the results and approved the final version of the manuscript.

Notes

1 The study provides two figures based on estimates from ridership counts and surveys, with the second being more moderate. Connor (1982) believed the moderate decline estimated using surveys to be more accurate.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by TransLink New Mobility Lab.