(Project BDK84 943-34) Florida faces growing challenges for meeting the mobility needs of travelers and businesses. The 2060 Florida Transportation Plan forecasts a near doubling of both population and employment over 2010. At the same time, the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) acknowledges that available funding will not be sufficient to pay for necessary improvements to the transportation system with the funding gap expected to widen. Such a formidable challenge means that Florida’s commuter assistance programs (CAPs) like other transportation programs, will need to make continual improvements. To that end, FDOT has committed to review and update processes and guidelines to make sure Florida is achieving the desired results. Two types of surveys were conducted for six of seven CAPs in Florida to assess the impacts of ridematching services on behavior and estimate the outcomes such as reduction of vehicle miles of travel (VMT). The general population survey measures advertising and promotion efforts of the CAPs overall and commute habits. The customer survey estimates the effects that the CAPs have had on commuting behavior. CAPs reduced over 28,000,000 in vehicle miles of travel and 847,000 vehicle trips while providing over 35,000,000 person miles of travel and 1,145,000 person trips in carpools and vanpools. Recommendations were made to improve the evaluation process and the performance of the CAPs. Download the final report. For more information, contact Philip Winters at winters@cutr.usf.edu.

By jiley on November 9, 2012   /   Publications, Research   /   Leave a comment