Data Collection & Maintenance

Collecting accurate data is vital to the work that PART does.  Data used by PART comes from federal, state, or local agencies such as the U.S Census Bureau, the U.S. Department of Transportation, the North Carolina Department of Transportation, and various local municipalities.  Ridership data generated through Automatic Passenger Counters (APCs) located on all of PART’s buses is reviewed and aggregated and always kept up-to-date.  A weekly diagnostic report is performed to guarantee that the devices are functioning properly. The APC data is often supplied to different departments within PART who use it to make key decisions.

Other information that is often shared across agencies is route and bus stop data located within the General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS).  Therefore, ensuring that the GTFS is updated every time there is a service change is important when sharing data.  All of the data at PART is constantly being updated and archived for future reference and regulatory compliance.

Tools

Route Planning and Evaluation involves synthesizing existing operational data, best practices in the industry and demographic and employment data.  PART uses several tools to process, analyze and visualize data.  The Planning Department uses:

• Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) data through an online tool called On The Map (See image below)
• Catchment Area Analyses using Socio-Economic Data from the Regional Travel Demand Model
• The Cost of Housing and Transportation Data, a measure of the overall cost of housing and transportation cost by families by location
• Transit Propensity, a measure of ridership and transit service support based on population and employment
• Remix, a route analysis tool that calculates route cost, length, hours, and service demographics automatically
• Route ridership projections and potential from TBEST
• Automatic Passenger Counter data that counts persons getting on and off a bus at each stop