UC Berkeley Center for Future Urban Transport: A Volvo Center of Excellence

A Direct Ridership Model (DRM) for predicting Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) patronage in Southern California is estimated. Attributes of bus stops and their surroundings constitute the data observations of the DRM, enabling a fairly fine-resolution of analysis to be carried out on factors that influence ridership. The best-fitting DRM revealed that service frequency strongly influences BRT patronage in Los Angeles County. High intermodal connectivity, with both feeder bus routes and rail-transit services, also significantly induces BRT travel. Population densities also contribute to BRT patronage and in the case of exclusive-lane BRT services, higher employment densities further increase higher daily boardings. The strong statistical fit of the model bodes well for DRM as a platform for estimating BRT patronage in coming years.