BACKGROUND

TCRP’s Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual (TCQSM) is a cornerstone of the TCRP report series. It has consistently been TCRP’s most downloaded and viewed document and is used throughout the United States by public transportation practitioners and other industry professionals. Numerous universities use it as a basic transit education tool in various courses. Also, TCQSM has become known and applied throughout the world, having been downloaded in more than 116 countries.

The manual was designed as the transit counterpart to the Highway Capacity Manual, an authoritative, regularly updated document presenting highway capacity and quality of service principles and practices. The TCQSM is intended to serve as a comprehensive resource document presenting information on principles and practices related to transit capacity for all transit modes and quality of service from the passenger’s point-of-view. Throughout its history, TCQSM has served as an implementation tool for relevant TCRP research.

In addition to incorporating the research that has occurred since 2013, the TCQSM, Fourth Edition, needs to address recent developments in the public transportation industry, including a greater concern for equity. Numerous transit technologies and practices have emerged or advanced that should be addressed (e.g., transit automation, electric buses, micromobility, fare payment technologies, Transportation Network Companies (TNCs), shared-use services, and the use of big data to measure service quality). In addition, the transit capacity and quality of service effects of the COVID-19 pandemic can provide lessons for similar events that may occur in the future. 

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this research is to develop the TCQSM, Fourth Edition, that reflects the latest transit capacity and quality of service research and applications. This research project should include a detailed review of transit capacity and quality of service research and applications and identify elements of TCQSM, Third Edition, that are no longer relevant.

STATUS: The research is underway.