Michigan's public transportation: An application of statewide performance assessment and management

Abstract

Transit agencies commonly use performance measures to assess the quality of provided transit services. This paper presents a case study, proposes and applies a method to assess the condition of a state-wide system combining urban, semi-urban, and rural transit agencies. First, the paper proposes 11 “Action Intent of Measures” (AIMs), which capture qualitative and quantitative aspects of transit systems. Second, it develops an index that condenses the 11 AIMs into one measure to allow assessment of the collective performance of the state's transit industry. Third, it applies the AIMs and the index to measure Michigan's state-wide transit performance annually between 2014 and 2018. Agencies reported better performance on AIMs that they felt they had control over in contrast to those that they felt they had no control over. Due to annual performance measurement of the state-wide system, the state transport agency targeted technical assistance to improve performance over time.

Keywords

• Transit
• Michigan
• State-wide
• Measure
• Performance
• Case study