Commuter Bus Demand, Incentives for Modal Shift, and Impact on GHG Emissions
Funding Source: MassDOT
Title: Commuter Bus Demand, Incentives for Modal Shift, and Impact on GHG Emissions
Date: March 2018
Status: Completed
Summary: In response to Governor Charles Baker’s Executive Order No. 569, MassDOT Rail and Transit Division is interested in identifying ways to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the transportation sector by incentivizing mode shift through the provision of improved transit service. This project focuses on determining whether there is an opportunity to expand commuter bus service in the Greater Boston area and the necessary incentives commuters need to make a modal shift. This project has utilized existing models to estimate the status quo of mode split and GHG emissions and has developed user cost and agency cost models that are used to model operations of a new commuter bus service for each origin-destination (OD) pair at the spatial resolution of towns. Then, an efficiency metric defined as the ratio of change in cost for providing the additional service over the reduction of GHG emissions (after the introduction of the new commuter bus service) is applied, and the combinations of fare and commuter bus frequency that maximize this efficiency metric for each OD pair are determined. The final outcomes of this project are rankings of OD pairs that present the maximum efficiency.
