UC Irvine Institute of Transportation Studies

The Institute of Transportation Studies has developed criteria to evaluate transit performance, but there is insufficient reliable information to test their usefulness. Performance indicators have been specified for each criterion, and we have attempted to collect operating and financial information from public transit operators throughout California to test the usefulness of the indicators. The experience of two months of collection effort, together with literally hundreds of telephone calls, has led to the conclusion that accurate financial and operating data for the public transit industry is presently not available nor can it be reasonably collected. Without such data, comparison of systems is not possible, comparison of any system's performance in successive years may not be reliable, and certainly, the information on which TSM policies and policies are based is questionable. 

This paper details the problems encountered and the issues raised by our experience in collecting reliable and uniform data from operators within California. It is perhaps useful at the outset to acknowledge that California is an optimistically-biased case. Only a few states presently have annual reporting requirements for transit properties; Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan together with California being the most comprehensive. California has had uniform reporting requirements since passage of the Transportation Development Act in 1971. The Act makes specified sales tax revenues available to transit, and requires annual claims for these funds to be accompanied by specific operating and financial data. 

There are three appropriate questions: (1) Why is the data not being reported? (2) What does the data mean? and (3) Is the data outdated? The paper will conclude with a brief examination of present reporting requirements and some recommendations for improvement of transit statistics.