Transit

Cambridge Systematics is a leader in transit planning and project development, with demonstrated expertise in ridership forecasting, New Starts project development, transit market research, strategic planning, and analysis of the economic and financial impacts of transit investments. Our staff help plan, evaluate, and implement transit services in a variety of settings, including conventional and high-speed rail, local and intercity bus, bus rapid transit, commuter rail, light-rail, high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) facilities, new technologies, special activity centers, transit-oriented development (TOD), and special purpose services. We have the technical expertise and institutional experience needed to bring a transit project from concept to reality.

Our Services

• Strategic Planning. The forces of change at work in public transportation increasingly require fundamental adaptation and departure from long-standing institutional roles, relationships, and organizational structures. Institutional change is needed to: redefine organizational mission and measures of success; more clearly distinguish strategic decision-making responsibility from day-to-day operational responsibility; elevate real-time knowledge of markets and customers to strategic importance using new tools; and bring new skills and techniques to the organization in managing technology, customer, and partner relations. Cambridge Systematics has monitored and supported these types of institutional changes for numerous public transportation agencies, and authored the Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) report on New Paradigms for Local Public Transportation Organizations.
• State-of-the-Art Travel Demand Modeling. Cambridge Systematics has been developing and applying travel demand forecasting models since our formation in 1972. We have pioneered many of the modeling practices in use today, through research and innovative practice conducted to enhance travel models. Cambridge Systematics continues to develop creative, practical solutions for travel demand models, such as the estimation and implementation of tour- and activity-based models and the integration of land use and travel models. In addition, we have developed software tools that facilitate the evaluation of transportation and land use alternatives impacts. Our practice is built on the foundation of discrete choice model estimation and statistical analysis, thus ensuring reliable forecasts. Our staff contribute to the New Starts Advisory Working Group, a peer review panel developing travel forecasting guidelines for the Federal Transit Administration (FTA).

• New Starts Project Planning and Development. Cambridge Systematics has more than 25 years of experience in the development, implementation, and evaluation of transit and multimodal transportation systemwide and corridor strategies throughout the United States. Since 1997, we have been supporting the FTA’s New Starts program, including development of technical guidance on the measurement and reporting of New Starts criteria, transit-supportive land use assessments, and financial assessments and oversight. Additional support has included technical presentations to New Starts Roundtable participants, quality control of land use and financial assessment results, and preparation of summary and lessons learned reports. We have helped develop New Starts projects now in operation in Boston and San Juan, and under construction in San Diego. Cambridge Systematics has developed New Starts strategies and documentation for efforts in Chicago, St. Louis, Fort Lauderdale, Madison, and the Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee corridor.
• Transit Market Research. Cambridge Systematics has adapted and applied market research techniques to enhance transit strategic and service planning and improve ridership with existing resources. Market research methods perfected in our work for Fortune 500 companies are used to define traveler’s attitudes and preferences. Services then are identified to match market segments. Our application of market research to transit planning includes development of highly practical service planning tools that integrate market segmentation results with mode choice models. We have applied market research techniques for projects in San Diego, San Mateo County, San Francisco, and Utah, and we are developing a market research-based service planning tool for the Pace Suburban Bus Service in Illinois.
• Economic Benefits of Transit Investments. Across the nation there is considerable interest in the economic development benefits of transportation projects. Communities hope that new rail transit or busway investments will stimulate development to support growth objectives such as redeveloping brownfield sites, strengthening urban neighborhoods, creating new suburban activity centers, and helping to contain sprawl. They further hope that transit investments will strengthen the regional economy and make it more attractive to business investment by reducing traffic congestion and improving mobility both for highway and transit users. Cambridge Systematics has pioneered economic impact analysis techniques for transit investment, and helped support rational investment decisions, including development of tools to link transit performance, multimodal benefits and costs, and economic productivity.
• Financial Analysis. Significant constraints exist in the availability of funding for the operation, maintenance, and rehabilitation of existing transit systems and the development and implementation of new capacity projects. These constraints have worsened in recent years given economic downturns, as state departments of transportation and transit agencies vie for scarce resources. Analysis of the financial feasibility of transit agencies to support existing funding commitments and new investments has become increasingly important to identify funding gaps, and investigation of new funding and innovative finance and delivery opportunities is needed to fill these gaps. Cambridge Systematics has supported both transit agencies and the FTA in the analysis of financial feasibility, development of financial plans, and identification of new funding and financing alternatives for transit systems and projects. This work has included a focus on the unique funding needs of systems and regions, and the application of innovative financing techniques to solve local funding problems.

Why Cambridge Systematics

The need to gain more productivity out of our nation’s transportation system and to create mobility options for all populations has led to an increased emphasis on transit solutions throughout the country.  For decades, Cambridge Systematics has helped agencies plan and develop effective transit solutions and enhance the operations of existing transit systems.  Our work provides critical input to the decision making process, whether understanding the economic benefits of transit to a regional economy, to forecasting ridership under varying future scenarios, to finding the funds needed to make new projects a reality.

We further understand the need for rigorous yet transparent processes for critical and high profile decision-making by the FTA in determining the future of major transit capital investments.  Our long history of collaboration with both the FTA and with New Starts project proponents on those processes has helped improve decision-making by better justifying the likely benefits of New Starts projects.