This report will be of interest to state and local transportation planners, analysts, and decision-makers to assist them in matters pertaining to the introduction and expansion of public transportation services in rural areas. Almost 1,200 public transportation systems now exist in rural communities across the United States and receive Federal funding. Many of these systems have been in operation since the 1970s and 1980s, but their economic impacts have seldom been quantified. This report examines the economic impacts of selected rural public transportation services at the local level through case studies, and it estimates the national economic impact of rural public transportation on an average annual per county basis. The primary objectives of TCRP Project H-11, Assessment of the Economic Impacts of Rural Public Transportation, were to (1) identify and quantify the economic impacts of rural public transportation in the United States on both a local and a national level and (2) develop and present a practical economic impact methodology to enable rural transportation providers, planners, and community decision-makers to plan, design, and evaluate rural public transportation to maximise economic benefits. The research report begins by addressing the diversity of rural communities in the United States, using Beale Codes, developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), to categorise rural counties based on population size and proximity to urban areas. Of the 3,141 counties and county equivalents in the 1990 Census, 2,288 were classified as nonmetropolitan or rural counties. In the early 1900s, most rural residents were involved in farming, forestry, and mining; and they lived in small communities with few outside contacts. Today, rural economies have a wide diversity of economic activities and demography, and rural life is much more connected to national markets. Chapter 3 of the research report presents concepts and methods for identifying and measuring the economic impacts of public transportation systems. This section is important in that it provides an overview of the techniques of benefit measurement and describes how the researchers measured the economic impacts of rural public transportation systems for this study. The credibility of these methods are of utmost importance to the credibility of the research results. To avoid double counting of benefits, the approach focused on primary, major benefits and did not attempt to quantify all benefits. The estimate of economic benefits is approached in two ways. An aggregate approach employs correlation analysis between county-level economic growth trends in rural commuting zones, as defined by the USDA, and the presence of rural public transportation. A case-study approach estimates local benefits, employing data available in each area and making assumptions as necessary to compensate for missing information. National estimates of rural public transportation benefits are made by using the results of the commuting zone analysis and by extrapolating the case study findings to the national level. The heart of the research report presents the results of 8 in-depth case studies and 14 desk audits of the economic impacts of rural public transportation services. The results of the case studies demonstrate greater economic impacts than had been shown in previous literature. Among the in-depth case studies, the benefit cost ratios ranged from 4.2 to 1 to 1.7 to 1, with an average ratio of benefits to costs of 3.1 to 1. Rural transit systems that offered significant employment benefits, contributed to independent living, and provided access to critical medical services scored highly in the analyses. The commuting zone analysis showed an average net earning growth differential between rural counties with transit and rural counties without transit of more than 11 percent. This difference averages out to approximately $1 million per county annually. Using this difference to estimate the maximum benefits of rural public transit systems, the benefits exceed the costs of all federal, state, and local government expenditures on rural transportation by the ratio of 3.4 to 1. We still cannot say for certain that rural public transit systems cause economic growth, but the report examines the issue of causality and concludes that there is a real possibility that rural transit systems have positive impacts on the economies of the communities they serve. The final section of the report provides guidance to local transportation professionals in rural areas on how to measure the benefits of rural public transit systems and how to maximise the benefits generated by their own transit systems. Transit agencies can maximise benefits by tailoring services to the needs of their communities. Agencies should focus on particular trip types (e.g., employment, education, medical services, and promoting independent living), provide services at the times required by customers at fares appropriate to the customers served, and focus on a small number of system variables that can be locally controlled (e.g., destinations, hours of service, and fares). (A)
Abstract