This paper describes a unique public/private approach to providing medical and university employees in an urban activity centre with a package of transportation demonstration programs tailored to meet their commuting needs. The joint pooling of resources among eight major institutions and a co-operative arrangement with the municipality of metropolitan seattle allows for the custom-designed program. The package of services includes experimental peak-hour transit service from outlying park-and-ride lots to the urban activity centre, midday emergency backup through regular transit routes, and a taxi rider insurance program. It also provides program participants with 1 day of free parking per month, which allows for greater flexibility in trip planning. Expected benefits for the private sector include substantially reduced costs for employee transportation provision from what the institutions were individually paying; direct transit service to the institutions, reducing travel times by one-half over regular transit service; more parking availability for clients; and ability to enhance efforts in meeting the city of Seattle's required 50 percent high-occupancy-vehicle mode split. Expected benefits for the public sector include guaranteed 80 percent fare box recovery, guaranteed 274,000 annual riders, ability to test new strategies with minimum risk, and trip reduction on the king county road network and in the first hill urban activity centre. Follow-up papers in 1989 will evaluate the progress and success of the program and describe marketing techniques used to attract the unique population that the program is designed to serve.
Abstract