Southeast Florida Regional STOPS Model – A Common Modeling Platform for Transit Corridor Studies in South Florida
Corresponding Author: Ashutosh Kumar, CTG
Presented By: Ashutosh Kumar, Connetics Transportation Group
Abstract
The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) District 4 recently implemented a Simplified Trips On Project Software (STOPS) model covering all three counties (Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach) and the four major transit agencies that the local regional travel demand model covers in Southeast Florida. The purpose of this regional model is to create a common “ready-to-go” ridership estimation platform for multiple ongoing and upcoming premium transit corridor studies in the region. The key benefits of this effort include:
• Utilizing data and assumptions that are consistent across these corridor studies to help prioritize their implementation plan
• Saving resources by avoiding multiple studies recreating similar efforts in implementing STOPS as well as by avoiding enhancements of Southeast Florida Regional Planning Model’s (SERPM) transit components for the multiple corridors
• Quicker turnaround for ridership forecasting and analyses
• Providing a basis for Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA) Capital Investment Grant applications (New/Small Starts)
FTA expects that the agencies will utilize available boarding data (such as APC information) at the existing fixed guideway stations and the bus stops for calibrating the existing transit travel conditions within STOPS. In addition, studies should also make full use of available on-board transit surveys to inform STOPS about the local travel patterns. The regional STOPS model has been calibrated in accordance with these expectations from FTA. An interface developed specifically for this application lets users select counties and agencies to model and thereby avoiding any possible ridership data gaps on agencies that do not matter to the project.
The regional STOPS model is made available to the region’s public agencies and consultants for generating transit ridership forecasts in corridors that include Bus Rapid Transit, commuter rail, heavy rail and streetcar modes and alternatives. The transit forecasts from this model will complement the traffic forecasts from SERPM. In the longer term, when SERPM’s transit forecasting components are further enhanced for corridor application, the forecasts from this STOPS model can be used to QA/QC similar forecasts from the regional travel or data-driven models.
The presentation will detail the purpose, calibration results, challenges, effectiveness and initial local reactions to the regional STOPS model.