Metropolitan Transit Agency's Experience Operating General-Public Demand-Responsive Transit

Since 2000 the Regional Transportation District of Denver, Colorado, has operated general-public demand-responsive transportation, branded as Call-n-Ride (CnR), in 21 service areas in a variety of settings throughout the district. CnR was developed for use in communities where bus service is not cost-effective because of low to moderate residential and employment density, circuitous street networks, and dispersed geographic and temporal travel patterns but where demand is sufficient to warrant internal circulation or connection to the metropolitan transit network. The CnR service is characterized by a range of demand-responsive transportation service configurations, incorporating many-to-many services, scheduled checkpoints, zones, and flex routes tailored to the topography and travel patterns of each service area. In this paper, an analysis of data obtained primarily from CnR's automated scheduling system provides insight into the operations of demand-responsive transportation services for the general public. This insight may be used in other metropolitan areas for assessment of the feasibility of a CnR system.