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56 <br /> Chapter 3:Service Supplied and Performance <br /> ADOPTED PERFORMANCE CRITERIA <br /> As part of its Title VI plan, OPT was required to adopt performance standards that could <br /> be applied to its services as a common yardstick that could be used to assure equitable <br /> provision of services. The adopted standard for fixed route services uses the measure <br /> "boardings per service hour" (which has to be collected for OpStats), such that over a <br /> specified period, any route that falls below 5o% of the average boardings per hour for the <br /> entire system is to be evaluated for modification or elimination. <br /> This methodology is often used for urban fixed route transit systems. Its advantage is that <br /> each individual service is compared only to the average of the entire system, so it is <br /> calibrated to that system. If the entire system has a low average, it is possible that a route <br /> operating at a productivity that is 50% of that level may actually be providing a very low <br /> ridership in absolute terms. For example, if the system average is 8 boardings per service <br /> hour and a route is only providing 4 boardings, it may still meet the threshold even <br /> though the service really should be considered for a change to route deviation (Four <br /> boardings per hour is a very low level of productivity for fixed-route service). <br /> Consideration of this possibility suggests that OPT should at least consider setting some <br /> additional benchmarks by type of service, perhaps based on industry norms. <br /> POTENTIAL PERFORMANCE MEASURES <br /> In addition to the adopted measure, there are several general transit performance <br /> measures that can be used to track transit performance. These could include: <br /> • Operating cost per service hour <br /> • Operating cost per service mile <br /> • Operating cost per passenger trip <br /> • Passenger boardings per service mile <br /> • Farebox recovery (fare or contract revenue divided by total operating expenses- <br /> i.e. the percentage of costs paid by the user or agency) <br /> • Total subsidy per trip (the portion of operating costs that is not paid by the user or <br /> agency) <br /> In addition to: <br /> • Passenger boardings per service hour <br /> In general, a system should apply these measures to each type of service it provides <br /> because each is likely to have very different characteristics based on the possibility of <br /> NCDOT Orange County 40 KFH <br /> Transit Assessment Study <br />