CATA Articulated Bus Evaluation

Foursquare ITP completed a project in State College, Pennsylvania with the Centre Area Transit Authority (CATA) to determine and define the need for articulated transit vehicles. CATA experiences vehicle capacity issues along four corridors that provide a high level of transit service to and from the center of Penn State University’s main campus. The study reviewed and evaluated industry-wide best practices in the operations and maintenance of articulated vehicles through a peer and literature review to understand how the implementation and ongoing use of articulated vehicles will affect the overall logistics of providing transit throughout the CATA service area. Foursquare ITP also reviewed the performance of the existing CATA services, including stop and route level ridership, loads, on-time performance, and passengers per hour and per mile. The analysis also included an assessment of the socioeconomic and demographic makeup of the CATA service area and ridership. The operations and demographic analysis, along with a maintenance capacity analysis performed by our subcontractor TRC Engineering Services, ultimately led to recommendations on where and when the articulated vehicles should be operated to provide the most impact in terms of stemming vehicle capacity issues and increasing CATA’s vehicle resource efficiency.