Discover the Details
How Do You Get Higher Ridership?
By making transit useful to many people.
Useful transit provides more access— it lets you reach more opportunities in a given amount of time.
We can maximize access by:
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Providing high-frequency routes
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Forming a connected network
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Making transit reasonably reliable and fast
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Focusing on places that are:
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Dense
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Walkable
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Nearby
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Direct
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How Should We Design the KAT Network?
It depends.
Imagine we are designing a transit network for this fictional city. The lines are roads and the dots are people and jobs.
Places with more dots close together are dense with activity. More people want to travel to and from those places. That dense activity is concentrated along the main roads.
The buses in the image are all the resources we have to run transit.
Before we can plan the routes, we must first ask: what is our goal for this city's transit system?
If our goal is to get the most ridership from our system, we would concentrate transit resources where most people and jobs are close together. We can then provide high-frequency service that is very convenient and encourages people to ride transit in those areas.
If our goal is to get transit coverage in as many areas as possible, we will have to spread transit resources out. Routes cannot be as frequent, and so not many people would find transit useful and convenient. However, there would be some transit coverage in as many areas as possible.
Both goals are important, but within a limited budget shifting towards one means shifting away from the other.
Where Are High Ridership Areas Today?
The maps here show different factors that affect the demand and need for transit. Density of jobs and people are the primary factors that encourage high transit use. Other maps show need factors like poverty density, the density of seniors, or people of color.
