Bike Share Toronto is Canada's second largest public bike share system. It provides a unique case study as it is one of the few bike share programs located in a relatively cold North American setting, yet operates throughout the entire year. Using yearround historical trip data, this study analyzes the factors affecting Toronto's bike share ridership. A comprehensive spatial analysis provides meaningful insights on the influences of socio-demographic attributes, land use and built environment, as well as different weather measures on bike share ridership. Empirical models also reveal significant effects of road network configuration (intersection density and spatial dispersion of stations) on bike sharing demands. The effect of bike infrastructure (bike lane, paths etc.) is also found to be crucial in increasing bike sharing demand. Temporal changes in bike share trip making behavior were also investigated using a multilevel framework. The study reveals a significant correlation between temperature, land use and bike share trip activity. The findings of the paper can be translated to guidelines with the aim of increasing bike share activity in urban centers.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

SUMMARYThis paper presents a critical investigation of reasons for using transit by residents of the City of Calgary, Canada. Reasons for using transit are expressed as functions of people's perceptions and attitudes towards transit service quality and attributes. A multinomial logit model combined with latent variable models is developed to capture unobserved latent variables in defining perceptions and attitudes. Using data from a transit customer satisfaction survey conducted in 2007 by Calgary Transit, this approach models the reasons for choosing transit and tests the significance of two individual specific latent variables: perceptions of 'reliability and convenience' and 'ride comfort'. Many behavioural details are revealed that have important policy implications. Most importantly, it is found that the people of Calgary value 'reliability and convenience' over 'ride comfort'. As for policy implications of the findings, it is clear that improving the connectivity of train service, reducing multimodal transfers, and increasing dedicated right-of-ways for transit would effectively increase transit ridership in Calgary. Copyright Understanding the public's attitudes, perceptions and knowledge in relation to transport measures is important for the formulation and monitoring of transportation policies. Demand for an efficient transit system in any urban area stems from mobility, environmental and energy objectives. Measurements of a transit system's service quality is a challenging research theme and of great importance to the transit service providers and regulatory agencies [1]. The actual performance of a transit system should be considered from the transit users' perspective [2]; and, although there has been demand for analysing transit service quality based on how the users perceive it [3], very few studies truly concentrate on attitudes or psychological factors behind the users' perceptions of transit service quality. Attitude towards transit is an important element influencing people to choose transit in our autooriented North American cities. Attitude, often expressed as perception, is an abstract and psychological term and plays the major role in governing behaviour and defining action [4]. Actions towards transit usage can be traced back to the users' perceptions of the service quality of a transit system. In order to influence peoples' actions in terms of transit over automobile usage, it is germane that we understand the factors influencing formation of attitudes or perceptions towards transit, because people's attitudes are reflected in their travel related actions [5]. This paper follows this principle of investigation in order to identify the factors influencing transit modal share. However, other than focusing on a conventional mode choice model of transit modal share, we have taken a different approach. JOURNAL OF ADVANCED TRANSPORTATION