2012-02-26 – David Levinson, Transportist

Recently Published: Carrion, Carlos and David Levinson (2012) Value of travel time reliability: A review of current evidence. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice 46(4) 720–741.[doi]

Travel time reliability is a fundamental factor in travel behavior. It represents the temporal uncertainty experienced by travelers in their movement between any two nodes in a network. The importance of the time reliability depends on the penalties incurred by the travelers. In road networks, travelers consider the existence of a trip travel time uncertainty in different choice situations (departure time, route, mode, and others). In this paper, a systematic review of the current state of research in travel time reliability, and more explicitly in the value of travel time reliability is presented. Moreover, a meta-analysis is performed in order to determine the reasons behind the discrepancy among the reliability estimates.
Keywords: Variability; Reliability; Travel time; Scheduling; Meta-analysis

A Political Economy of Access: Infrastructure, Networks, Cities, and Institutions by David M. Levinson and David A. King

Transitway Network: Metropolitan Council approves METRO name, vehicle graphics for LRT/BRT transitway system (February 23, 2012 Metropolitan Council News Release) :

““The METRO system name identifies the developing LRT/BRT services as unique,” said Arlene McCarthy, director of Metropolitan Transportation Services for the Council. “METRO riders can expect fast, frequent, and convenient service, whether they ride the Blue Line to Target Field, the Red Line to Mall of America, or the Green Line to the State Capitol.””

Apparently the 90 percent of regional transit riders who use local buses can expect slow, infrequent, and inconvenient service, whether they ride the 3 to downtown or the 8 to Franklin Avenue Station.
The framing like this aims to diminish local buses into second-class service.