UC Irvine Institute of Transportation Studies

Comparison of performance of transit systems and discussion of changes in the transit industry across years is facilitated by comparison of systems which are similar in their operating characteristics. Analysts and policy makers can be misled by comparing performance of systems which are essentially unlike one another. Construction of peer groups of transit systems which are similar in their operating characteristics allows individual systems to be compared to others which are similar, the relationship between operating characteristics and performance to be examined by focusing on differences between groups and to detect changes across years in the performance of systems with certain operating characteristics. 

This report focuses on fixed route motor bus transit syst~ms which reported data for Section 15 for FY1980 and FY1981. Peer groups of these systems were constructed on the basis of variables reflecting inherent differences in operations and operating environments. Ideally one would use demographic variables to determine operating environment for each system. However, since these are not available in a form compatible with the level of reporting in the Section 15 data, four variables, tapping different aspects of the operating characteristics, of transit systems were selected as the basis for measuring the similarity among transit systems.