Personal Rapid Transit for Atlantic County

Transcription

1 Personal Rapid Transit for Atlantic County ORF 467: Transportation Systems Analysis NJ PRT Project Professor Kornhauser TA John Valentino January 11, 2011 Anna Zhao

2 Atlantic County and its PRT Needs Atlantic county is located in southern New Jersey and has an area of approximately 671 square miles, of which 561 square miles is land. There are just over 103,000 households 1, with a total population around 270,000 people. While Atlantic County has a population density of 450 people per square mile 2, the majority of the people reside in the Atlantic City-Hammonton metropolitan statistical area; the US Census estimates that close to 40,000 people live in Atlantic City. 3 Since Atlantic City is the most well-known attraction and densely populated region in the county, the PRT network s priority is to provide high quality service in Atlantic City. An estimated 37 million people visit Atlantic City annually, and its 13 casino hotels, which have over 12,000 guest rooms, enjoy occupancy rates in the 90s year round. 4 However, while visitors can easily access the boardwalk from the Atlantic City International Airport, about 2/3 of the visitors to the city travel by car, the other third by coach bus, and only 2% of the tourists arriving by air. 5 This statistic reveals the commuters needs for and demands of PRT in Atlantic City. 1/3 of the visitors to Atlantic City do not have a car and must rely on public transportation, taxis, bike, or foot to travel around the city. Even though there is a shuttle that runs in Atlantic City and services the major attractions, PRT would give them a cheaper and more convenient way to see the city, while still being able to reach their destinations quickly. Because of the high number of people who could potentially use the PRT, to attract the highest number of customers possible, the network needs to minimize the distance traveled, and hence travel time, to go from one attraction to the next. Furthermore, there needs to be a sufficient number of stations so that all the attractions can be reached. As a result, as one can see below, the network for Atlantic City appears more congested than the rest of the county since there are more and quicker route options. Ideally, the ease with which one can reach several tourist attractions will make increase revenue to the city, which can help fund the building of the network US Census Estimate US US &_street=&_county=atlantic+city&_cityTown=atlantic+city&_state=&_zip=&_lang=en&_sse=on&ActiveGeoDiv=geoSelec t&_useev=&pctxt=fph&pgsl=010&_submenuid=population_0&ds_name=null&_ci_nbr=null&qr_name=null&reg=null:null&_keyword=&_ind ustry= ibid.

3 Transportation in Atlantic County NJ Transit currently has the regional rail, the Atlantic City Line, which connects Philadelphia and Atlantic County, making stops in Hammonton, Egg Harbor, Absecon, and Atlantic City. In Feb 2009, NJ Transit also started operations for the Atlantic City Express Service line, which connects Atlantic City with Newark and New York Penn Station. This three stop line only runs on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. 6 The majority of the visitors to Atlantic City are regional, hailing from New Jersey, New York, or Pennsylvania 7, so the creation of the PRT network could change the method of travel to Atlantic City from car to rail by eliminating the need for a car. To further reduce the number of visitors who drive to Atlantic City, the municipal government should consider increasing parking costs to NYC levels. In order to capture the New Jersey market, the PRT system needs to be connected to neighboring counties. Those closest to Atlantic City are least likely to travel to the city by bus, and are also probably the most frequent visitors to Atlantic City. It should also be noted that connecting Atlantic County and Cape May County should be a priority because of Atlantic Cape Community College, which focuses on educating residents of both the counties of Atlantic and Cape May

4 PRT Network Creation Proceess Data Collection: Step 0 of the PRT process is to gather data on the number of commuters, which entails the number of visitors to businesses, students enrolled at each school, and people living in each census block. We used the data for the county from the previous year s class, so this step mainly required eliminating repeat entries, making sure that the locations of major placemarks such as high schools were accurate, and editing the visitor estimates to be more realistic, ie removing estimates of 16, 146, 400 visitors at the local newspaper. The final estimates used reflects some news updates discovered during this editing process, such as that the Atlantic City Surf minor league baseball team ceased operations in , and the Sweetwater Casino burned down in the summer of , and the opening of Cedar Creek High School in For the enrollment numbers, the number of students was obtained from the school s website, and the number of employees was estimated using the state of New Jersey s student-teacher ratio of 13.9 and adding on 30 people for principals, custodians, librarians, the lunch lady, etc. Visitors to a school was estimated by assuming that 1% of the student body would have a visitor (such as parent dropping off something homework left at home) and adding 5 for non-student related visits, such as deliveries. The number of visitors to an office or manufacturing type of business was typically estimated to be at most 200 people per day, and often much less, and the number of patients estimated per day for a private practice to be around people a day, after assuming that 2-3 people were seeing patients every 20 to 30 minutes for seven hours a day. The Convention Center patron total was estimated to be 7000 per day as a compromise between the extremes of the Convention Center s predictions of general public attendance (sometimes over 40,000) and exclusive conferences (600). 11 An unreliable internet source said that a manager said that Walmart could receive up to 4000 shoppers in a day. This number was used as a cap for most attractions and all stores because like Walmart s everyday low prices, nothing beats Walmart. 12 The casinos are probably by far the largest attraction in Atlantic City, and accurate estimates for daily patrons are difficult. Estimates for annual total visitors are around 37 million, which is approximately 100,000 people a day. Most major casinos and attractions (attractions were estimated to be as popular as a major casino at best) were estimated to have 8 to 15 thousand visitors a day to account. This estimate comes from the fact that several of the major casino hotels have roughly 1500 rooms (some have more than 2000). Assuming that each hotel has a 100% occupancy rate, which is not far off from the actual rate which is in the 90s year-round 13, we get 3000 people a day who are staying in the hotel, not including the day-trip only people (assumed to be at least twice as many) and people who go to the resort to enjoy the various other activities there, such as the spa, shops, nightclubs, and restaurants. Estimates for the visitors to the boardwalk were relatively low, since most of the major casinos are next to the boardwalk, and so there would be overlap that would inflate the patron trip count. If the total number of Upon later review, when it was too late to change all my estimates, a more reliable source puts the Walmart daily visitor count as ranging between 200 and

5 patron trips should be approximately 4 times the population, these estimates are fairly close to the 370,000 person count, at 1.55 million. The patron trip totals did not differentiate between shopping, dining, and entertainment. Estimates for the categories were based on the following assumptions: 65% of the patron trips were for shopping, such as clothes, groceries, medical (buying medical services), etc; 25% of the trips were for dining; only 10% of the patron trips were for entertainment, since estimates of casino visitors were reflected in recreation, which was included in entertainment. So to clarify, entertainment consisted of recreation and 10% of general patron trips.

6 Network Design Process The next step required building the actual network by placing the stations at logical and profitable locations and connecting them with interchanges. Restrictions taken into account were that stations could only have one arc in and one arc out, and interchanges could have at most 4 arcs in or out total. There was also emphasis on minimizing the amount of two-way guideway because of the significant increase in cost. Stations were placed to minimize coverage overlap; overlap occurred most frequently in the more suburban and rural areas, due to reduced location options. Stations were connected with several main lines that rarely, if ever, changed direction, and then interchanges were placed in the middle of stations as much as possible. These restrictions and technique led to a network similar to the Manhattan subway system with oneway guideway and every other parallel guideway going in the opposite direction. This forces riders to pay an around the block penalty, where they would potentially have to loop around the block to reach a destination that they could have reached if it were a two-way street. Below is a picture of the Absecon region that demonstrates this technique and shows the coverage of each station.

7 Any station that was outside of the main lines that run north-south through the county typically required a loop. To minimize the around the block penalty, when beneficial, because of the oneway nature of the guideways, these loops were designed to go in the opposite direction of the main line. A simple example of this loop can be seen with the Egg Harbor Train Station shown below. If we take the upper-left hand corner to be north, then the main line runs north-south. This design meant that when the loop was reconnected with the main guideway, the commuter enters the main system further up the line, and thus has more options and a smaller around the block penalty. In this example, the backward loop allows for commuters from the train station to access the station circled in blue and cross to the other side without having to go down and back around. This design was especially important as we move further away from downtown Atlantic City and towards the suburbs, where many of the streets do not have a checkerboard design that minimizes the around the block penalty. By minimizing the penalty, more stations have direct access to a larger loop. As seen below, the circled stations do not have to loop around and instead can go directly to the loop from the main line.

8 The Full-Service PRT System 14 With these considerations in mind, we get the full-service PRT System shown below. This 450 mile network has 350 stations and 445 interchanges. While it only serves just under 54% (5,880 of 10,986) of the placemarks, this system serves 90.5% of the trips. The blue lines highlight the guideway headed towards Atlantic City, with the guideway in the middle going up, headed away from Atlantic city. There are two lines headed towards Atlantic City to allow the residents of Atlantic County go to Atlantic City at any time of the day. There is no need to go only when the trains allow for it because as the saying for PRT in Atlantic County goes, all lines go to Atlantic City. In creating this network, one principle that I tried to go by was to make sure that every school was connected because not only do we always have to keep the children in mind, but children have to go to school, and it s the most guaranteed destination in a region. This principle became an issue when the school district s neighborhoods were spread out with low population densities. When the school in question was an elementary or preschool, the decision to not provide PRT was easy because no parent would send their preschooler off to school by themselves, and only elementary school children of a certain age may be allowed to go to school by themselves. An instance of this occurring is circled in blue. Small schools were also neglected if they were remote with a small enrollment because they tended to be private schools, and it s unlikely that they would fire their driver and ride the PRT to school anyways. 14 This network was created before the technical glitch with Excel was discovered. That glitch made several key placemarks show up on the map, such as the airport and new high school. Changes to the network were not made to reflect these additional placemarks, since this network is not the recommended version. That being said, the original version of the full-service network still highlights the key difference between the fullservice and NJ Transit PRT system.

9 While there are few stations along the three main tracks of guideway and only one main purpose of connecting the northwest part to the southeast part of the county, one justification for having it is that it could be what the 6 th Avenue elevated railroad line was to NYC. Before the construction of the 6 th Avenue line, there was little developed there, but after it became connected, the property value went up and the area flourished. 15 By having the guideway there, it would be easy to build stations in the future to increase service if necessary. If it doesn t, then the system just provides better service to the customers. 15 ORF 467 Evolution of Transportation Technology lecture notes

10 The NJ Transit-PRT System Profitability is a function of the demand and the location of a station. Even if there is enough demand to make building a station profitable, it makes little sense to have a PRT station if it is remote and requires miles of guideway to connect to the rest of the network. As one can see in the full-service PRT network in which stations were placed for maximum service, ie in the densest areas, we can say that Atlantic County s population is clustered in two chunks. If we consider the Hammonton Train Station as representing a mini-network, then based off our definition of profitability, this mini network creates an enormous fixed cost by having to connect it to the main network. This multimodal system has 330 stations, 433 interchanges, and is connected by 419 miles of guideway, to serve 89% of the trips, and 5,769 of 10,987 placemarks. We get the NJ Transit-PRT System by removing eliminating the guideway that connects the two networks. By making this reduction, we cut the amount of guideway needed by about 30 miles 16, and at $5 million a mile, we save 150 million dollars without even considering maintenance costs. By eliminating this guideway, we do reduce service by eliminating the stations along the removed guideway, but we are still able to serve almost 90% of the trips with this network. This multi-modal network uses NJ Transit to connect the people of inland Atlantic County to the Atlantic City half of the network. Based on the assumption that people attend their local school and don t travel across the county for most of their activities, this design allows the residents of the mini network to use the PRT to do their shopping, go out to eat at a restaurant, visit friends, and go to school. While the residents of Hammonton and Buena (lower half of mini-network) 16 Calculations made with full-service system and original NJ Transit-PRT system that did not include changes to patron estimates or additional placemarks.

11 can only reach the other network by train or car, to address the inconvenience of disjointed networks, two possible solutions are park and ride lots on the border of the Atlantic City side of the network and increased NJ Transit service from Hammonton to Egg Harbor. The other assumptions made for this system is that those on vacation going to Atlantic City from New Jersey don t value their time as much as those on business, so they won t mind waiting a short time to catch the train. For those traveling for business, the belief is that they can plan their meetings accordingly around the train schedule, drive to a park and ride lot, skip the train and catch the PRT, or allot more time for business. NJ Transit-Recession Model In light of the recession, there is also the NJ Transit-Recession System, in which service to Buena is cut (circled in blue). The NJ Transit-Recession is 386 miles long with 316 stations and 416 interchanges. This multi-modal transportation network serves 5,634 of the 10, 987 placemarks, which accounts for 88.0% of the trips. While the percentage of trips served does not decrease significantly, I do not like this model because a network in Buena would allow the residents to commute to work, go to school, and go shopping. Of the three PRT networks mentioned, I believe that the most viable option is the NJ Transit- PRT system. This system minimizes costs by reducing excess guideway without sacrificing satisfactory service to the commuters by utilizing the transportation system that is already in place.

12 Keys to success for the PRT in Atlantic County Construction for the PRT will start from Atlantic City and move inlands as the years progress because it has the greatest and most dense demand in the county. In constructing the network, I noticed that it was relatively easy to service 75% of the county because many of the major trip attractions are clustered together; only approximately 220 stations were needed. However, once the dense areas were served, and the focus shifted to the more spread out areas of the county, it became exponentially harder to increase the proportion of trips served with a similar increase in the number of stations. For example, it took approximately 280 stations to serve 80% of the trips, and 326 for 83%, and 404 for 85% of trips served 17. Of the NJ Transit model, the mini-network (Hammonton and Buena) will be lowest in priority. Eventually, once the system is sustainable, we can consider expanding to the full-service model. I made my network before the year feature was added, so below is a picture with circled priority areas. The Atlantic City network should be built first (circled in purple), followed by the Pleasantville area (circled in blue), Richard Stockton College of New Jersey/Absecon (green), Egg Harbor (yellow), Mays Landing/Atlantic Cape Community College (orange), and Absegami High School/Galloway (red). After Atlantic City, which has the greatest demand in the county, these priorities were based on NJ Transit s bus weekday ridership data which shows that most of the people who ride the bus, particularly lines 502, 507, 508, and 509, have a final destination of Atlantic City (typically at least 2/3 of the riders); a large portion of these riders board the bus from the Pleasantville, Egg Harbor, and Absecon regions This number is greater than the final network of all designs because it was tracked before a missed major attraction was served and a number of other revisions were made after the initial network was completed. However, this does not change the point that past a threshold that is probably close to 75%, it becomes exponentially harder to see an increase in trips served that corresponds to a similar proportional increase in stations. We can see this fact from the other direction as well because in my revisions, I was able to remove several stations while only decreasing the percentage of trips by 2-3% Bus Zone Profile Weekdays.pdf

13 Each PRT network design only serves just over 50% of the placemarks, so to increase ridership, there needs to be park and ride lots throughout the county. Many of the smaller neighborhoods are out of walking distance from a station, but are still close enough to where it would not be inconvenient to access the PRT with a two minute drive to a nearby station. Furthermore, park and ride lots are crucial to the success of the PRT because while many of the stations are technically ¼ mile away, the walking path distance is usually greater than one would like to walk, not to mention that the frigid cold in the winter. The idea of the park and ride stations is that each major station could be like Princeton Junction, where the daily commuters catch the NJ Transit to NYC to go to work. One of the main sources of competition for the PRT network in Atlantic City will be the jitney operated by the Atlantic City Jitney Association. This shuttle has four different lines, three of which run 24/7/365. Each trip costs $2.25, but trips to the terminal station are free. Not only will the PRT provide quicker service with more freedom, but to address this competition, the Atlantic City PRT will have promotions and packages, such as individual and group day passes. There will also be lockers at each station that will be have unlimited use for free with the purchase of a pass or at a very low cost for one-time travelers. These lockers are meant to overcome one of the main inconveniences of being car-less: not having a free storage place for everything not needed at the moment. The lockers will free people finish their errands or enjoy their entertainment without the annoyance of lugging around a bag of clothes or groceries. One suggestion for next year is to try and get a bus map, such as this one incorporated into Google Earth as a toggle feature. It could be useful in helping plan out routes or seeing which important neighborhoods are being overlooked. If not possible, using a bus map in conjunction with NJ Transit s ridership data could be useful in finding important places to provide service for.

14 NJ Transit-PRT Network: 330 Stations 419 miles 433 interchanges Network Statistics 19 Cost Analysis of NJ Transit-PRT Network Total Trip ends served Total Trips Peak hour Trips Fleet size Average trip Length (miles) Average Vehicle Occupancy (trips/vehicle) Vehicle Operating Costs 3,702,477 2,672, , $ 0.20 Capital Costs Item Cost per Total Total Capital Cost (in millions) Station $2m 330 stations $660 Mile of guideway $5m 419 miles $2,096 Vehicle $100, cars $4,409 $ 7,165 Annual Recurring Costs (in millions) Cost of Capital Maintenance Operating Total $573 $143 $401 $1, Trip counts are per day

15 Annual Revenue (All values in millions except for fare) Fare ($) Fare revenue ($) Station lease and naming rights ($) Total ($) Annual Profit (loss)($) , , 020 2, , , 218 2, , ,417 1, , , , , , , , , , , (304) $2.25 is NY Metro fare. $1.37 is minimum fare to barely break even. Standardized plot of profit (in millions) vs. the fare

16 Trip Ends Statistics (Per Day) Home School Work Shopping Transit Entertainment Dining Total Trips Served 769, , , ,511 4, , ,120 2,741,092 Possible Trips 1,010, , ,318 1,008,927 4, , ,049 3,081,756 Possible (Non-Student) Patrons trips in your county: 1,552, Total Trip (Ends) Served: 2,741,092 / 3,081,756 (88.95% service) 20 Patrons split into 65% shopping, 25% dining, 10% entertainment (in addition to recreation)

17 The 25 busiest stations: After removing the 25 busiest stations: