This white paper documents the findings from a review of available research literature on the benefits and costs of transit systems in the United States. Transit systems and collections of systems–as opposed to individual transit projects, routes, or lines–were targeted specifically for this research because the benefits and costs of entire systems are more likely to reflect the benefits and costs of transit for society as a whole. As such, the primary goals of this research were to 1) identify benefit-cost (b-c) ratio estimates for U.S. transit systems, and 2) identify the main categories of monetized benefits that derive from transit services in the U.S. The assembled data will help planners, advocates and policy-makers by: 1. Providing a resource of collected benefit-cost ratios and other quantifiable, monetized benefits of transit, 2. Identifying the key benefits (monetized) of transit that may be of interest to planners, advocates and policy-makers, and 3. Providing a collection of monetized transit benefits that might be useful to researchers seeking ways to advance the methods for quantifying benefits and costs. The first section briefly describes the methodology used to collect and analyse the transit benefits and costs data. The next section provides an overview of benefit-cost data collected from a review of the research and planning practice literature. This is followed by a presentation of the key benefits of transit as identified, measured, and analysed in the benefit-cost literature. Finally, this white paper concludes with a summary of key findings from this research and suggests avenues for future work. The information and analysis presented in this white paper were developed primarily from a review of the available literature on benefit-cost (b-c) estimates of existing transit systems in the United States. The literature search was performed through a combination of online searches using standard search tools (e.g., Google), more specialized online search tools and databases (i.e., Google Scholar and the Transportation Research Information Services [TRIS]), and online and on-site searches at the University of California, Berkeley’s Institute for Transportation Studies (ITS) Library. Once the appropriate literature was identified and obtained, it was reviewed and evaluated according to three criteria. The literature was required to: 1. Contain benefit-cost estimates for U.S. transit systems and not, as mentioned previously, to measure individual transit projects, routes, or lines; 2. Provide detailed breakdowns of methods and results for individual benefit categories; and 3. Use methodologically sound estimation methods generally consistent with current best practices. Once an inventory of the literature meeting these criteria was complete, the b-c estimates from each were organized according to the type of study area (e.g., rural, small urban, urban, etc.) and transit services provided. Patterns were identified and analyzed, as discussed in the “Benefit-Cost Ratios of Transit Services in the United States” section. Through the process of organizing and analyzing these b-c estimates, categories of monetary transit benefits were also identified. The relative value and contribution of each benefit category to the total b-c estimates was then evaluated by breaking the estimated monetary value each analysis team gave them, as reported in their published findings, into benefit categories. The estimated dollar value for each benefit category was then divided by the total estimated costs of providing the transit services, thus creating a benefitspecific b-c ratio for each category. This allowed the benefits from each published study to be compared on an equal basis. As much as possible, it compared “apples-to-apples.” Where appropriate, additional literature on the benefits of transit (i.e., not from the b-c literature) was obtained and included in this white paper in order to cast light on specific issues or questions as they arose in the analytical process. Furthermore, it is important to note that while the non-monetary benefits of transit–such as social capital, quality of life, or “sense of place”–are not included in this analysis because they are not easily quantifiable, these benefits may be substantial and should be considered beyond the narrow confines of what b-c researchers and analysts currently measure. (Author/publisher)
Abstract