This research provides guidance to transit operators and regional policy makers on how to enhance suburban mobility through traditional and nontraditional transit services, improved linkages between services, timed transfer, coordinated fare policies, and other innovative techniques. This research identifies successful policies and strategies and reviews current and emerging suburban transit practices. The product of this research is a handbook to assist transit operators and planners in the design, coordination, and delivery of effective customer-oriented suburban services. The handbook includes (a) service options appropriate to various suburban transit situations, (b) techniques and guidelines to evaluate service options, and (c) analysis of case studies.

Status: The final report has been published as TCRP Report 55, "Guidelines for Enhancing Suburban Mobility Using Public Transportation."

TCRP Report 55 is also available in portable document format. (A free copy of Adobe Acrobat reader is available at https://www.adobe.com.) Double-click on the links below to access the report.

Front Matter, Chapter 1: Guidelines for Enhancing Suburban Mobility; Chapter 2: Suburban Transit Services; Chapter 3: Actions to Modify and Improve the Overall Suburban Transit Framework (1,816 Kb)

Chapter 4: Circulators and Shuttles; Chapter 5: Subscription Buses and Vanpools; Chapter 6: Summary-Lessons and Conclusions; Bibliography; Appendix A: Classifying Suburban Environments (731 Kb)