Public Transit Economics: Ridership, Farebox Recovery & Service Planning
Analyse a fictional city's bus and tram network: boardings per revenue hour, crowding, headways and vehicles needed, a cost allocation model, farebox recovery and subsidy, fare elasticity scenarios, on-time performance and a route ranking dashboard, with every cell checked as you go.
The first lesson is free — no account needed.
About this course
A public transit economics course that analyses the bus and tram network of one fictional city in a spreadsheet, for transit planners and analysts, transport policy and urban planning students and anyone who follows transit budgets. You calculate boardings per revenue hour and per revenue kilometre and flag the routes below the productivity standard, compare peak loads with seats and capacity and size the extra trips crowded routes need, turn cycle times and headways into the vehicles required with ROUNDUP, build a cost model per revenue hour, per kilometre and per peak vehicle with the cost per boarding by route, track the farebox recovery ratio and the subsidy per rider over six years, model fare changes with a price elasticity, measure on-time performance from scheduled and actual times, and rank the routes in a weighted dashboard. Illustrative figures. The first lab is free.
Lessons
- Boardings by Route & per Revenue HourFree
- Load Factor & Crowding: Peak Loads vs Capacity Pro
- Headways & Vehicles Required: Cycle Time ÷ Headway Pro
- Operating Cost per Vehicle-Hour, per Km & per Passenger Pro
- Farebox Recovery Ratio & Subsidy per Rider Pro
- Fare Change Scenarios with a Price Elasticity Pro
- On-Time Performance & Reliability Pro
- Route Performance Ranking Dashboard Pro