Stevens Institute Technical Memorandum

To:
Prof. Wakeman
From: Ricardo Vital Barroso
Date: February 18, 2014
Subject: Far Beyond Rush Hour: The Incredible Rise of Off-Peak Public Transportation
What looked like a photo of a weekday rush hour in a New York City subway platform
was actually a picture of a platform at 01:30 AM on a weekend in Brooklyn. Eric Jaffe
wrote the article to The Atlantic Cities at February 06, 2014.
The midday, evening, and weekend transit use had a substantial growth in the past
years and only now the transit agencies have begun to give attention to that demand.
The article says that, since 2007, ridership on the weekends has grown at a much
greater rate than ridership on the weekdays. The main causes for this off-peak demand
are the increasing number of urban households living car-free and visitor travels in
several metro areas. The immigration plays a great role in off-peak demand too, since
low-income immigrants are much more likely to commute off-peak than their Americanborn counterparts.
The growth in transit ridership is happening in the off-peak hours and there is a
psychological element to off-peak service that transit agencies fail to appreciate. If
people know that a train - or any other public transport - can take you to your destination
anytime you need, they will be more willing to use that transport. A Metro Transit's
analysis shows that the off-peak frequency improvements more than pay for themselves
in terms of ridership. Therefore, this yields economic and environmental benefits, and
generates better traffic conditions on urban roads.
It is important to analyze the growth of transit use in the off-peak hours to understand
the trend of transportation demand. The public transportation becomes increasingly
important because of the population rise and the vertical growth of the great urban
centers. Beyond that, there is the garage conditions and the drunk driving laws that
reaffirm the importance of public transportation in the future of transport planning.

I pledge my honor that I have abided by the Stevens Honor System.

Ricardo Vital Barroso