Houston Systemwide Transit On-Board Survey

Services Provided:   Transit Onboard Support, Survey Expansion

The Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC) conducted the 2022 Regional Transit Onboard Origin-Destination (OD) Survey in partnership with the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County (METRO). The survey was conducted on local bus, commuter bus, and light rail passengers for each of the transit systems that operate within the H-GAC eight-county regional transportation planning area on weekdays.

Insight assisted the team in performing a secondary expansion of the sample survey. Based on the survey-independent datasets provided by Houston METRO (METRO), secondary expansion was performed in two areas: bike-access trips and Park & Ride (P&R) routes. Insight adjusted the surveyed sample weights to be more representative of the P&R and bike access boardings. This adjustment was validated by comparing the boardings before and after the secondary expansion and by decomposition analysis of the transit boardings. Insight also converted the onboard survey data into STOPS (Simplified Trips on Project Software) incremental file format to be used in STOPS applications. The H-GAC’s STOPS model was run using the updated incremental file format to validate the expansion of the Onboard survey.