How weather news impacts public transit ridership

Date:
August 31, 2020
Source:
University of Utah
Summary:
Researchers found a correlation between words used in media coverage
related to weather or air quality, and transit ridership. It's
not enough yet to say that media coverage causes changes in
ridership. But it's enough to explore what factors in to a person's
decision to ride transit and whether that decision can be nudged.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
If the words in a weather forecast, such as "cool," "sunny" or "windy,"
can influence the way you dress for the day -- can they also influence
whether or not you take public transit?

==========================================================================
In new research published in Vehicles, U researchers found a correlation between words used in media coverage related to weather or air quality,
and transit ridership. It's not enough yet to say that media coverage
causes changes in ridership, say authors Tabitha Benney and Daniel
Mendoza. But it's enough to explore what factors in to a person's decision
to ride transit and whether that decision can be nudged.

"This is encouraging," Benney says. "There's a lot of potential in terms
of reaching a lot of different actors that could have a big influence or encourage ridership." Scanning the media Mendoza, a research assistant professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences and visiting assistant professor in the Department of City & Metropolitan Planning, previously
studied how transit ridership along the Wasatch Front, on the buses and
trains of the Utah Transit Authority (UTA), impacted air quality. The
impact is greater when more people are riding since low-ridership trips, particularly on older buses, can actually have a net contribution to
air pollution.

Around the same time Tabitha Benney, an associate professor in the
Department of Political Science, was looking at surveys of Utahns that
included their reasons for using transit or not. "We were surprised
at some of the responses," she says, "and that led me to pursue asking questions about what matters in terms of what could be in the media or
how it could be influencing people." So Mendoza and Benney, along with co-authors Martin Buchert and John Lin, looked at how media coverage
of the weather and air quality correlated with transit ridership. For
the years 2014-2016, they scanned 40 local Utah media outlets for
words related to weather (such as "cloudy," "freezing," or "summer"),
air quality (red, yellow or green air day, according to the state's
color-coded air quality system) and air pollution (such as "ozone,"
"PM2.5" or "particulate matter"). Then they looked at the transit
ridership the day after the media coverage and noted the actual air
quality of that day.



==========================================================================
"We wanted to ask if there are any additional factors that would encourage
or discourage ridership," Mendoza says.

Comfort and safety UTA has three main modes of transportation: buses,
light rail (TRAX) and commuter rail (FrontRunner). FrontRunner riders
tend to ride for farther distances, and their rider behavior, the authors found, didn't vary much with media terms. The most variation, they found,
was in bus ridership.

Within that variation, a few media terms related to weather stood
out. On average, more usage of the term "good weather" was correlated
with more ridership the following day. Similarly, more usage of "winter"
was associated with increased ridership, but that may be related to the seasonal nature of U students, the authors say, as the U is the single
largest paid pass purchaser from UTA.

Few UTA bus stops have a weather shelter, Mendoza says (although UTA
has added more shelters in recent years). Media reports of bad weather,
he suggests, could discourage bus ridership.



==========================================================================
When looking at color-coded air quality terms, the researchers found less ridership on the bus system on days following use of "orange air day"
and "red air day." That could be due to non-commuter bus users who ride
the bus for discretionary transportation choosing to stay home to avoid
poor air quality and the cold temperatures that typically accompany poor
air quality days.

"Ridership is associated with favorable weather conditions and air
quality," the authors wrote, "suggesting that ridership volume may be influenced by an overall sense of comfort and safety." They also found
that less technical terms, such as "particulate matter" instead of
"PM2.5," were correlated with greater changes in ridership. Same with
the color-coded "red air day" term.

"That kind of surprised us," Benney says. Another surprise was the finding
that reports of bad air quality reduced ridership, and that reports of
good air quality didn't boost it.

"You would expect a strong relationship to clean air with people wanting
to move in that direction," she says. "And that's obviously significant." Moving the needle Benney says that the study focused on web-accessible
media outlets and did not take into account social media, which could
have a significant influence on younger audiences, who tend to ride
buses more. Upcoming work, she says, will look closer at the sources
of Utahns' information about weather and air quality, including from
religious services.

The study is encouraging, she adds, because it suggests that messages
may be able to influence day-to-day rider behavior. "This opens up a lot
of opportunities for large institutional actors to help promote better
air quality through ridership," she says.

And the impact has already begun. The Utah Legislature passed a bill in
2019 that launched a three-year pilot program to provide free fares on UTA transit on poor air quality days. Preliminary findings from this research, Mendoza says, provided part of the bill's supporting scientific basis.

Additionally, he says, some of the largest employers in the Salt Lake
Valley, including the University of Utah, may be able to use these
findings to effectively encourage employees to make air-friendly choices through riding transit or choosing to telework. "And now we're all getting really used to telework!" he says. "Because of that we can actually
start to potentially move the needle by reducing the vehicular traffic."

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Utah. Original written
by Paul Gabrielsen.

Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Daniel L. Mendoza, Martin P. Buchert, Tabitha M. Benney, John
C. Lin. The
Association of Media and Environmental Variables with Transit
Ridership.

Vehicles, 2020; 2 (3): 507 DOI: 10.3390/vehicles2030028 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200831165710.htm

--- up 1 week, 6 hours, 50 minutes
* Origin: -=> Castle Rock BBS <=- Now Husky HPT Powered! (1337:3/111)