Is your bus system overrated? Making comparisons with the National Transit Database
The Ann Arbor Transportation Authority approved a 2010 budget at its Sept. 23 meeting, with one dissenting vote. Treasurer Ted Annis said the budget was "too fat" and used an analysis in part by looking at comparable cities from the National Transit Database, and saying that Ann Arbor came up short compared to Bay City, MI. How does the AATA compare with the Bay Metro, profiled in this March 2009 Bay City News story?
Ann Arbor always compares itself against other cities when it comes to looking for national attention and promotion. Whether you think the city is overrated, underrated, or has the best downtown in America, the key is always having some set of comparable cities to list and then some ranking algorithm that puts you on top.
A specific point of comparison that was provided in a handout was between the AATA and the Bay Metropolitan Transit Authority (Bay Metro), which serves Bay City, MI. The analysis noted that for the latest year where complete information was available (2007), Bay Metro ran its fleet at an operating expense of $81.34 per vehicle revenue hour, compared to Ann Arbor's $105.90 per vehicle revenue hour.
Here are the two complete reports for 2007 for these two systems, as can be found on the Ann Arbor Area Government Document Archive. I'm not going to draw conclusions myself about these two systems, other than to note that the AATA system looks more efficient used than the Bay City system based on operating expense per passenger mile - $1.56 for Bay City vs. $1.08 for Ann Arbor in 2007.
Edward Vielmetti rides the bus to get his job at AnnArbor.com. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan, where for his senior thesis he read through the daily routine correspondence and letters of Henry Carter Adams, an economist who developed statistics on the national railroad system for the Interstate Commerce Commission in an effort to regulate the railroads and improve safety performance. His favorite Bay City Rollers song is Saturday Night.
Comments
John Hritz
Wed, Sep 30, 2009 : 3:16 p.m.
The first thing I did was take the annual budget and divide by the number of trips. For Ann Arbor it would be $4/trip if you funded it purely on fares. For the Bay Area its $10/trip.
Dan1737
Wed, Sep 30, 2009 : 2:30 p.m.
Other facts that stood out in a quick glance are that while AATA has slightly fewer than twice as many vehicles, those vehicles average about the same number of miles per year but about twice as many revenue hours per year as in Bay Metro. That suggests AATA routes are run slower (or with more time at stops). So costs per vehicle mile may be about 25% higher for AATA but it's actually lower than Bay Metro on an hourly basis. While diesel and some other expenses are per mile, some accrue on an hourly basis (e.g. labor). Also note that AATA passengers take shorter trips on average (3.2 miles) than Bay Metro riders (5.6 miles) so comparisons per trip rather than per miles would make AATA look even better. That said, is this the right comparison? I'd prefer to see a comparison against a group of cities. That'd make it easier to see not just who manages costs better but what's typical.