How policymakers can improve transit operations

Introduction

Whether people choose to use public transit often comes down to a simple question: how long will the trip take?

In many U.S. cities, a 20-minute car trip can take an hour or more by transit because routes are indirect, service is infrequent, or buses and trains are delayed by traffic. These longer travel times help explain why transit accounts for only a small share of daily trips in most metropolitan areas.

In 2024, about 3.7% of U.S. workers commuted by public transportation, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. Yet focusing on commuting may overstate transit’s current popularity. Transit carries a larger share of commute trips than of other travel.

The 2022 National Household Travel Survey conducted by the Federal Highway Administration found that transit accounted for 2.5% of trips to and from work, compared with 1.4% of shopping and personal-errand trips and 0.8% of social and recreational trips. Across all purposes, transit accounted for only about 1.5% of daily trips nationwide.

Transit commuters are clustered in a limited number of metro areas. In 2019, about 70% of transit commuters living in U.S. metropolitan areas were concentrated in just seven transit-heavy metros: New York–Newark–Jersey City, Chicago–Naperville–Elgin, Washington Arlington–Alexandria, Boston–Cambridge–Newton, Los Angeles–Long Beach–Anaheim, Philadelphia–Camden–Wilmington, and San Francisco–Oakland–Berkeley.

In many other metropolitan areas, transit commute shares are around 2%–3%. Despite its limited popularity in many parts of the country, public transit remains a major focus of transportation policy and continues to receive substantial public funding. To ensure transit serves as a practical transportation option in urban areas, agencies must provide reliable, frequent service that works for everyday travel.

Part of the answer lies in ensuring that transit serves today’s transportation patterns. When many heavy-rail and light-rail networks were built, transit systems were designed primarily to move large numbers of commuters from residential areas to central city employment centers during rush hour.

Today, jobs are often concentrated in several employment centers across a metropolitan area, while homes are spread over a much wider area. Remote work has also reduced the number of commuters who rely on traditional rush-hour transit.

As travel patterns have become more dispersed and schedules more flexible, transit networks built around peak-hour downtown commuting often struggle to match current travel demand. Transit riders now have fewer direct routes, more transfers, and less-predictable travel times.

These shifts in travel behavior help explain why many transit systems have struggled to maintain ridership.

In the United States, transit ridership peaked in the mid-2010s and had already been declining before the COVID-19 pandemic, suggesting the decline reflects longer-term changes in travel habits rather than a temporary disruption. Lower ridership can also lead agencies to cut service frequency and routes, making transit less convenient and increasing wait times for passengers. Small and mid-sized transit systems are especially vulnerable because even slight drops in demand can raise operating costs per trip and trigger further service cuts.

These changes suggest that transit performance depends not only on infrastructure but also on how service is designed and operated. Public discussions often focus on major capital projects such as rail expansions or new lines. Riders, however, evaluate transit based on how frequently and reliably it operates, how well its routes serve their destinations, and how long the trip takes.

Decisions about technology, operations, route design, scheduling, and street management therefore play a central role in making transit competitive with other travel options.

This policy brief focuses on those operational choices. The central argument is that improving transit performance depends less on building new infrastructure than on aligning service technology, operating models, network design, and roadway management with the way people travel today. An overview of this brief:

Part 2 examines how agencies can choose the right transit technology for different corridor types. Local bus service forms the backbone of most transit networks, with higher-capacity modes added as demand increases. In dense urban corridors, heavy rail (HRT) serves the highest-demand markets, followed by light rail (LRT) and bus rapid transit (BRT). In suburb-to-central-city markets, commuter rail generally serves denser corridors while express bus is often better suited to lower-density travel patterns. In low-density areas, microtransit and demand-response service (DRT) can provide more flexible coverage. 

Part 3 compares direct operation with contracted service and explains when each model is easier to define, monitor, and manage. It examines in-house operation, contracting, cost analysis, service quality, contractor availability, and case studies involving Arlington and Foothill Transit. 

Part 4 focuses on improved service operations, including route design, scheduling, real-time management, boarding delays, predictive maintenance, and artificial intelligence (AI). It explains how agencies can use measurable standards, observed operating data, and limited pilot projects to improve reliability without expanding tools that do not work. 

Part 5 examines roadway and system operations, including queue jumps and intelligent transportation systems. It explains how agencies can reduce delays at intersections, use vehicle and passenger data, manage signal priority, and coordinate with traffic agencies so buses move more reliably through the street network.

Part 6 applies this brief’s conclusions to craft useful recommendations for agency leaders.

Full policy brief — Transit operations: Recommendations for policymakers

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Source: https://reason.org/policy-brief/how-policymakers-can-improve-transit-operations/