Final Report

Bus Network Assessment - Analysis and Key Findings

Land Use/Development/Transportation Plans

The study team reviewed and evaluated various plans, transit recommendations and findings for Montgomery County. Analyzing these previous plans aids in adding local context to this study of the county’s bus network and provides background of other local projects in the area. Ride On is a key aspect in many of transit plans throughout the county. These plans included functional master plans, area and sector plans, and current transit planning projects. These plans have common themes and points on transit accessibility, multimodal connections, and sustainability.

• Multimodal access that provides facilities and infrastructure for transit, bicycles, and pedestrians.
• Transit oriented development promoting dense, mixed-use zoning.
• Equity initiatives to ensure access to all.
• Sustainable practices that reduce emissions, increase greenspace, and combat climate change.

Analysis of Previous Surveys

The study team reviewed a commuter survey administered by Montgomery County in 2014 and the Title VI Program Update to help gauge historic ridership patterns, mode share, and ridership demographics. These surveys illustrated contrasting attitudes and preferences towards public transit.

• The commuter survey illustrated the preference of auto commuting and the dominance of the mode, with drivers seldom even aware of transit benefits available to them. Driving was enabled by free or dedicated parking, and free bikeshare memberships or carpool priority was not enough to sway drivers out of their cars.
• Over 27 percent of the county makes less than $20,000 a year emphasizing the need for public transit as a connector to jobs, leisure, and education. Certain areas such as Germantown, Gaithersburg, and Wheaton were highlighted in the Program Update as specific areas where poverty levels are higher than in the surrounding areas at around 15 to 21 percent, further demonstrating the importance of public transit.
• Many of the responses from the internet survey indicate careers with higher salaries in healthcare fields or other associated businesses, as these commuters would typically work a 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. workday. The paper survey and Title VI analysis portrayed the county as dependent on public transit as a vital service.

Transit Propensity

As part of the existing conditions analysis, the study team evaluated the transit propensity of defined areas in the county. A Transit Propensity Index (TPI) synthesizes density of people and jobs, socioeconomic characteristics such as household income and race/ethnicity, and access to personal vehicles into a single metric representing the relative demand for transit services within a defined area. The county was divided into five subareas, which were examined for potential opportunities to capture latent demand or, conversely, to modify service delivery strategies to improve efficiency:

• Germantown-Damascus has among the lowest-performers in the county in terms of ridership productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness. Ride On could consider new delivery models such as on-demand service to improve service quality while maintaining coverage in the area.
• Gaithersburg-Laytonsville-North Potomac has routes with circuitous alignments, but with high on-time performance. Most neighborhoods with the highest transit propensity scores are well served by the existing network.

• Bethesda-Potomac-Rockville generates large ridership volumes in primary corridors, but productivity drops off in lower density and higher income residential neighborhoods. Neighborhoods with the highest transit propensity scores are well served by the existing network.
• Wheaton-Aspen Hill-Olney has a mix of areas that are well served, and those needing improvement. Areas with higher transit propensity scores and low transit accessibility and service levels include the residential neighborhoods located just south of the Intercounty Connector within the Leisure World, Layhill, and Colesville communities, and a smaller pocket in Kemp Mill.

• Silver Spring-Burtonsville is a highly productive transit market, representing about a third of the county’s total daily ridership. However, routes here tend to be less reliable and slower compared to those serving other subareas. In general, routes carrying the largest volumes of passengers exhibit lower on-time performance. This reflects delays attributed to passenger boarding/alighting activity, and the fact that these routes serve highly congested corridors.

Market Analysis

A market and origin/destination analysis helps provide insight into current transit demand and patterns, usage, and transit network operations. This analysis reveals that high population and job densities promote and encourage ridership, as existing bus ridership is clustered in these areas. Pre- and post-COVID-19 ridership was examined to understand its impacts on transit.

• The areas with the greatest densities are generally centered on the I-270 / Maryland Route 355 corridor from Germantown to the I-495 Capital Beltway, and inside the Beltway surrounding the District of Columbia boundaries. These corridors serve the most riders and employees, along with high residential populations.
• Improvements to the network in these areas would benefit the highest number of existing riders and can potentially increase transit usage.
• COVID-19’s impacts on the transit network ridership are demonstrated in a marked reduction of ridership volumes. However, post-COVID-19 ridership trends and patterns are similar to pre-pandemic travel. This corroborates with areas of high residential population and employment density.

Scheduled Bus Operations

In the scheduled bus operations analysis, the study team examined bus trips, schedule adherence, and speed to provide insight in to how well the county’s bus network performed. Pre- and post-COVID performance metrics provided context to the effects of the pandemic on transit operations.

• Overall, buses run on-time within the defined on-time metric of one minute earlier to five minutes later than the scheduled time.
• Buses are most likely to operate late in areas where bus travel speeds are slowest (Germantown, Gaithersburg, Bethesda, portions of Silver Spring, US 29 corridor). Congestion in these areas can slow bus operations in mixed traffic, leading to these reduced speeds and late performance.
• The key distinction between 2019 (pre-pandemic) and 2021 (post-pandemic) was that there were an increased number of early arrivals in 2021 over 2019, decreasing schedule adherence performance.

Customer Satisfaction Survey

The Customer Satisfaction Survey is an instrumental part of the Ride On Reimagined study. It provides MCDOT with a clearer understanding of current, former, and potential riders’ perceptions, opinions, and overall transit riding experience. This data will help with developing recommendations for system-wide changes that address the current and future needs of the community for both Ride On and Metrobus services.

Methodology

MCDOT fielded this online survey in English, Spanish, Chinese, French, Amharic, Vietnamese, Hindi, and Korean from September 8 through October 7, 2022. Participants were invited to take the survey through emails, Ride On’s website, and via more than a dozen social media posts. In addition, our community engagement team hosted four in-person pop-up events on September 8, 13, 20, and 28 at various transit sites across Montgomery County.

The survey yielded 2,170 valid responses from a diverse group of riders with varying demographics, routes, trip frequencies, trip purposes, and perspectives, following a data cleaning process to eliminate bots and people living outside the MCDOT region.

Key Findings

• Many MCDOT riders do not have a driver’s license and even more do not have a vehicle they can reliably use.
• Work is the main reason respondents travel on Ride On or Metrobus and also the top reason why some people ride MCDOT more now than they did before COVID.
• Conversely, working from home part-time or full-time is one of the top reasons why some people ride MCDOT less now.
• The top two areas to prioritize for improvement are:
  1. Accuracy of real-time bus arrival information and service updates
  2. How often the bus comes
• When given the choice, most prefer shorter waits between buses more than they want shorter walks to the bus stop.

Bus Service Existing Conditions - Analysis and Key Findings

Ridership Hotspots

Ridership analysis revealed concentrated transit activity. These hotspots remained the same from 2019 to 2021, but the level of boardings and alightings in 2021 were about half those of 2019.

Weekday boarding and alighting hotspots include:

• Silver Spring Station
• Wheaton Station
• Takoma-Langley Transit Center
• Shady Grove Station
• Rockville Station
• Lakeforest Transit Center
• Glenmont Station
• Germantown Transit Center
• Bethesda Station
• Friendship Heights Station

Bus Stop Facilities

Our analysis found the following:

• 14 percent of bus stops in Montgomery County are sheltered or have plans to be sheltered, and only six percent of all Montgomery County stops have lighting.
• While most high ridership stops are sheltered, there are a number of stops with high ridership volumes that are unsheltered, and a number of sheltered stops that have very low ridership volumes.
• 63 percent of all bus stops have a sidewalk, although many stops have sidewalks only at their stops and fail to provide connectivity to surrounding areas.
• Stops with sidewalks generate higher ridership numbers than those that do not have sidewalks.

Trip Planning

We reviewed how drive time and transit time compared throughout the county:

• The analysis compared trip planner results to Google Maps for transit versus driving travel times. The comparison showed that the driving time for most of the Origin/Destination (O/D) pairs was normally much shorter than the transit time, except for Silver Spring to DC and Bethesda to DC.
• Many of the pairs with dramatic differences between drive time and transit time were further up-county, such as Germantown to Rockville, Clarksburg to Silver Spring, Poolesville to Rockville, Gaithersburg to Darnestown, and Clarksburg to Gaithersburg.
• We compared identical or similar trips on the Ride On and Metro trip planners to each other. They had different results in both how to complete the trip and expected travel time; this is due to their different algorithms. 
• Ride On’s trip planner does not include locations not directly served by Ride On outside of Montgomery County, so some trips into DC could not be planned. This was another limitation of trip planners in the region and contributed to the fractured nature of trip planning across different platforms.

Route Profiles

There are five county subareas where we examined service and performance:

1. Germantown-Damascus had a decrease in ridership and some poor performing routes.
   • Between 2019 and 2021, bus ridership in the Germantown-Damascus subarea decreased at a faster rate than whole of Montgomery County. Weekday ridership decreased between 54 percent and 84 percent across all communities in the subarea. Germantown and Clarksburg together generate around 95 percent of all trips in this subarea of Montgomery County.
   • In 2019, Ride On Loop Route 97 in this subarea was the top performing of the four countywide Loop routes for weekday Passengers/Vehicle Revenue Hours, Passengers/Trips, Cost Recovery and Subsidy/Passenger, yet has the lowest on-time performance of the six routes in the sub area. Its on-time performance for weekdays, Saturday, and Sunday are all below 75 percent.
   • The remaining five routes ranked in the bottom third and fourth quartiles among all routes for all key performance indicators (KPI's) except on-time performance (OTP). OTP for all day types were greater than 85 percent., with the exception of Route 73's 79 percent on-time performance for Weekdays.
2. Gaithersburg-Laytonsville-North Potomac was defined by Metrorail station ridership and Route 55 ridership.
   • In the Gaithersburg-Laytonsville-North Potomac subarea, the Shady Grove Metro Station and Lakeforest Transit Center generated 41.6 percent of all weekday ridership in 2019.
   • Like Germantown-Damascus, bus ridership in the subarea decreased at a faster rate than the whole of Montgomery County.
   • Ride On Local Route 55, the only route to have at least seven hours of 11-15 minute headways on weekdays, Saturdays, and Sundays, is the best performing route in this subarea. This route also ranks first in weekday boardings, Passengers/Trips, Cost Recovery and Subsidy/Passenger among all local routes, although it only scores 84 percent for weekday and Saturday on-time performance.
3. Bethesda-Potomac-Rockville is a heavy-employment subarea, which impacted ridership figures because of the changing commuting landscape.
   • The Bethesda-Potomac-Rockville subarea contains 47 percent of Montgomery County's total employment base. Ridership in the area decreased at a faster rate than Montgomery County as a whole.
   • COVID-19-induced work-from-home trends and the subarea's high percentage of the county's employment base are likely the reasons why this subarea experienced higher than average ridership decline.
   • Transit productivity and general usage and availability is lower in lower density and higher income residential neighborhoods.
   • Metro Stations accounted for 44.9 percent of all weekday ridership in 2019. Rockville, Bethesda and North Bethesda represented 76 percent of the subarea's total ridership in 2021.
   • Ride On Local Route 46, the only local route to have 11-15 minute headways on weekdays, was also the best performing weekday route in 2019.
4. Wheaton-Aspen Hill-Olney has several poorly served communities and Metrobus service issues, but maintained ridership across the study timeframe.
   • In the Wheaton-Aspen Hill-Olney subarea, the Wheaton and Glenmont Metro Stations accounted for 33.3 percent of total ridership in 2019.
   • The subarea contains a few pockets of high transit propensity that are served with little to no transit, including the communities of Leisure World, Layhill, Colesville, and Kemp Mill.
   • Ridership decreased at a slower rate than the county as a whole between 2019 and 2021, and the subarea gained ridership share in the county across all days of the week.
   • Metrobus routes in this subarea are the worst performing services in terms of on-time performance.
   • Top performing routes serve major corridors with direct alignments, connect to Metrorail stations, offer frequent service, and operate long service spans, seven days per week. The lower-performing routes generally operate low-frequency, peak-only service on weekdays.
5. Silver Spring-Burtonsville has a varied transit landscape and consistent high ridership, partially owing to its booming population and transit proclivities.
   • Silver Spring-Burtonsville is the densest county subarea, making up only eight percent of land area but 20 percent of the population.
   • 69 percent of the subarea population identify as a racial minority, 49 percent of the subarea pop live in rental households, and 39 percent of the subarea population are single-vehicle households.
   • The subarea contains a BRT FLASH line and several routes with 11 to-15 minute headways, including Ride On Local Route 15 and Metrobus C2, C4, F4, K8, and K9.
   • The subarea accounts for around a quarter of total county bus ridership, with Silver Spring accounting for 60 percent of the subarea's ridership in 2019.
   • Two-thirds of Silver Spring's ridership is generated within its downtown core.
   • Most of the subarea's census designated places (CDP's) experienced a less severe ridership decrease compared to the county average.
   • The Colesville Rd./Columbia Pike Corridor is the subarea's most productive and utilized bus corridor; this is attributed to the fact that it intersects four other major corridors in the subarea. Only four routes (Ride On 15, 2, 25 and 19) have a weekday on-time performance greater than 85 percent.

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