Regional Transportation Commission

of Southern NevadaPerformance Measurements

Tina QuigleyDeputy General

Manager

What does the RTC do?

Transit Traffic Managemen

tSystems

Roadways

Southern Nevada – An Atypical Region- 1% wow! (the Las Vegas

Strip)

- 90% nothing (desert & mountains)

- 9% suburbia (sprawl)

- 2 million residents- 1 county- 5 cities- 1 public transit operator- No regional land use agency

- 7 million residents- 9 counties- 101 cities- 28 public transit

operators- Multiple regional land

use agencies

Southern Nevada San Francisco Bay Area

A Comparison

Measuring Success

Transit Performance Measurements

On-time performance – 10 minute standard

Passengers per service hourTotal passenger miles

Customer feedback

On-time performance – 5 minute standard

Revenue by routeRevenue per passenger trip

Costs by routeCost per passenger trip

If you look only at the NTD data for our system, the RTC…

• Is the most efficient system in the nation (based on cost per passenger trip - $1.71); New York City’s transit service comes in second

• Moves more people than the city of Portland, Oregon – with half the number of transit vehicles

“We have one of the highest passengers per service hour ratios – over 40!”

“We have one of the greenest fleets in the nation…utilizing CNG, diesel-hybrid electric technology and even recycled vegetable oil!”

“We have the only transit route in the nation (that we’re aware of) that actually generates enough revenue to pay for itself and subsidize additional routes!”

“Our system boasts one of the highest farebox recovery ratios in the nation – it’s over 40 percent!”

“…an adequate transit design must provide superlative service in order to be good enough…”

Transit Route Planning

Summerlin

US 95

Blue Diamond Hwy.

Henderson

North Las Vegas

I-15

Measuring Success - Transit All of these success

statistics are true, but by taking a closer look at our

unique environment tells a more complete story…

…there are two factors that best tell that story –

passengers per service hour and revenue per

passenger.

All of these success statistics are true, but by taking a closer look at our

unique environment tells a more complete story…

Measuring Success - Transit

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Passengers Per Service Hour by the HourRTC Transit Route 201

Daily Ridership by Hour – RTC Transit Route 201

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Revenue Per Passenger Ride

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Befo

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it on

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town

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rip

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January 2010 April 2010 August 2010

23% of the RTC’s ridership-generated revenue comes from the Strip & Downtown Las Vegas

Metropolitan Planning Organization

In its MPO role, the RTC collects, monitors and studies stuff.

Traffic counts

Safety databases

Street digital imagingTransit databases

Air quality standards

Project feasibility

Accessibility

The job of an MPO is often likened to herding cats…

When elephants work together, a lot can be achieved…when they don’t, guess who gets trampled?

Coordination & Cooperation

• Performance-based project selection

• Cooperation on data collection & analysis

• Promotion of multi-modal travel options

That other elephant in the room…

Gaming Corporations!

So instead, we invited them to participate - Stakeholder Advisory Committee…

Gaming

Senio

r cit

izensDevelopers

Chamber of commerceOrganized labor

General

contractors

Small

bus

ines

s

Utilities

General public

Tax payer

association

• Tasked with developing a process for prioritizing

• That simplified arithmetic was then applied to a

long list of unfunded transportation needs

• Staff worked with the group to create very simple measuring and math

The results were predictable…

• Projects with transit ranked high

• Un-linked roads ranked low

• The group also recommended some before / after studies

• The best investment were Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) projects

― Traffic management provides the best return

on investment!

Before / After Studies

Sahara Avenue - Before Boulder Highway - Before

Traffic Management

The RTC serves as the region’s traffic management agency through its FAST division…FAST collects a lot of data with the goal of measuring success.

8-mile section of I-15 has the most

concentrated stretch of FAST technology

This provides FAST with a lot of valuable data that can be used to measure

performance

NDOT’s new express lanes opened along I-

15 on June 25, 2010

Impact of the Express Lanes on I-15June 2010 (northbound) July 2010 (northbound)

July 2010 (southbound)June 2010 (southbound)

Average gain of 5 mph

Average gain of 9 mph

By gathering additional data with ITS technology, we can better manage traffic and

improve travel on our freeways…

Questions?