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| Conditions and Performance Report Appendix I—Transit Investment Condition and Investment Requirements Methodology |
| Conditions and Performance Chapter Listing Conditions and Performance Home Page Transit Economics Requirements Model Asset Rehabilitation and Replacement Module Performance Enhancement Module Rural and Specialized Transit Service Investments
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The Asset Expansion Module identifies investments required to maintain current operating performance. The module does this by accommodating growth in transit use at the base year level of performance. Using growth in transit passenger miles traveled (PMT) from MPO forecasts, the module programs the purchase of transit vehicle and other assets required to maintain the base year level of performance (based on vehicle utilization rates). The model screens investments to ensure that passenger miles per peak vehicle at least reach a national threshold. Investments are foregone in cases where utilization fails to achieve the threshold. Investments estimated by the Asset Expansion Module during the first part of the 20-year forecast period are the subject to the Asset Rehabilitation and Replacement Module later in the analysis period.Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) ForecastsMetropolitan planning organizations in most large urbanized areas make long-range forecasts of transit passenger growth and vehicle travel growth as part of the transportation planning process. These are the most comprehensive forecasts of transit travel growth available. In order to obtain these forecasts, MPOs in 32 of the largest urbanized areas were surveyed for their forecasts. In several cases, only transit passenger trips (rather than passenger miles) were forecast; in these cases, the trip growth figure was used. One notable omission from the survey is the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council, which does not forecast transit travel growth. Instead, the forecast from the New Jersey Transportation Planning Authority (which covers part of the New York City urbanized area) was used. Transit travel growth for the 370 urbanized areas not in the sample was estimated using the average regional (North, South, Midwest, West) growth rate. The weighted-average transit PMT growth rate calculated from the MPO forecasts and used in TERM was 1.90%, though the rates for individual urbanized areas range from 7.7% (Los Angeles) to -0.6% (Cincinnati). See Chapter 10 for a sensitivity analysis of the effect that different growth rates have on investment requirements. |
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