National Center for Sustainable Transportation

A previous National Center for Sustainable Transportation (NCST) study examined pandemic-related changes in MARTA transit system service and ridership in Atlanta, GA, and the combined effects on energy use and per-passenger energy use (Fan, et al., 2022). For that previous study, General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) and the Automated Passenger Counter (APC) datasets were used to develop the transit network and derive distance and passenger load information within the TransitSim analytical framework. The research coupled ridership data with energy use and emission rates from MOVES-Matrix to assess how the changes in transit service and ridership affected energy use and emissions on a per passenger-mile basis. Research performed in this supplemental NCST study improved model algorithms to increase analytical efficiency and to integrate ridership demographics, so that energy use impacts could be assessed across demographic groups for use in social sustainability analysis. This report summarizes improvements that generated TransitSim 3.0 and provides a social sustainability modeling demonstration.

View the NCST Project Webpage