Transit Leadership Summit

Regional Plan Association convened three multi-day summits in New York, Singapore and London that have brought together more than two dozen transit executives from 17 different metropolitan areas. This section encapsulates three years of research and conversations that have sought to address the management, operational, governance and planning challenges that many transit systems face daily.

In the full report, each TLS event is summarized, including key details on the venues, activities and discussions.

City profiles were developed for each of the 17 TLS cities. The profiles include an overview of the metropolitan area and background on their transit systems, including select innovative actions taken by the transit properties which they have shared at past summits. While the profiles highlight the geographic diversity of the participating cities, they also clearly show that the majority are large metropolitan areas with extensive heavy rail systems.

TLS was a unique opportunity to develop a set of comparative statistics for the participating cities and their transit systems. Over the years RPA staff has updated these data through collaborations with the 17 cities and publicly available sources. This process has revealed difference in how data are defined and interpreted. For instance, agencies define ridership, costs and subsidies in various different ways. In some cases ridership includes all trips separately (unlinked trips) whereas others define a trip as the complete journey even if it includes multiple modes (linked trips). Operating costs can include long-term liabilities, such as pension and asset depreciation costs, or not. Annual formula-based subsidies also could cover capital needs or just the operating deficit. This makes creating valid ​“apples to apples” comparisons between cities difficult.

Metro Statistics

Mode Share and Ridership

The modal splits show the proportion of transit riders that use each of the transit modes – light rail, heavy rail metro, commuter rail, bus, BRT and ferries. It highlights the variation of the mode share across the 17 TLS cities. It is important to consider modal share in the context of absolute ridership, since modal shares don’t reflect the magnitude of riders on each system. Consider Singapore and Seoul: the two cities appear to be alike, with similar modal splits between heavy rail and light rail. Yet Seoul’s ridership levels are three times greater than those of Singapore.

• A heavy rail metro system typically carries passengers within the city on an exclusive grade-separated right-of-way, elevated viaduct or embankment, subterranean tunnels or an open cut. Trains run frequently throughout the system, stations are spaced more closely together and speeds are slower than commuter rail. Journey times range from 15 to 30 minutes on average.
  Examples: New York City subway; London Underground.
• A light rail metro system typically runs along surface streets, in some cases in mixed traffic, or on exclusive lanes. Light rail systems generally operate at lower speeds, can brake faster to avoid conflicts with pedestrians, have a lower capacity and are less expensive to build and maintain.
  Examples: Hudson-Bergen Light Rail; Wiener Linien (Vienna)
• A commuter rail system typically transports residents from far-flung suburbs to the major job centers in metropolitan areas. Commuter trains run faster than heavy and light rail systems, rely on schedules and make less frequent stops.
  Examples: Long Island Rail Road; Metrolink (L.A.)
• A bus rapid transit (BRT) system aims to provide high-quality surface transportation service similar to that of a rail network. Essential to its success are an exclusive right-of-way, off-board fare collection, platform-level boarding, and improved service plans. A BRT system may adapt some or all of these features depending on its urban context, leading to a range of BRT services worldwide.
  Examples: Los Angeles, Santiago

The six white papers focus on pressing issues that transit executives are grappling with on a daily basis or that will affect their longer-term capital decision making. At the heart of each white paper is consideration of the role of the institutions that govern the delivery of transport service, and how these interact with public and private stakeholders. The composition of the transit organization and its operating environment dictate how it will respond to the challenges it faces. Some transit organizations are ill equipped to address broader issues of funding or climate change due to their narrow operational mission, while others are embedded in government and must contend with a political agenda that can result in suboptimal operational decision making.