Conditions and Performance Chapter Listing

Conditions and Performance Home Page

Introduction

Summary

Economics-Based Approach to Transportation Investments

Highway Investment Requirements

Bridge Investment Requirements

Combined Highway and Bridge Investment Requirements

Transit Investment Requirements

The Transit Economic Requirements Model (TERM) (see Appendix I for a technical description) generates estimates of future transit investment requirements. TERM uses inputs on the existing transit asset base, transit system operating statistics, and projections of future transit ridership growth to forecast the amount of capital investment which would be required from 1998-2017 in order to meet various asset condition and operational performance goals. These goals are:

• Maintain Conditions
  Transit assets are replaced and rehabilitated over the 20-year period such that the average condition of assets present at the beginning of the period remains the same at the end of the period.
• Maintain Performance
  New transit vehicles and infrastructure are deployed in order to maintain vehicle utilization rates (one of the system performance measures discussed in Chapter 4) at a constant rate even as transit passenger miles increase over time. Estimates of future growth in transit passenger miles are obtained from forecasts made by Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs).
• Improve Conditions
  Transit asset rehabilitation and replacement is accelerated in order to improve the average condition of each asset type in the existing asset base to at least a "good" level (see Chapter 3) by 2017.
• Improve Performance
  The performance of the Nation's transit system are improved as additional investments are made in the urbanized areas with the most crowded vehicles and the slowest systems, reducing average vehicle utilization rates and increasing average transit operating speeds. Service would be improved by reducing headways and/or increasing coverage. Vehicle crowding would also be reduced.