Since the late 1990s, a new type of intercity transportation has transformed travel in many American cities. This new travel option has not come from revolutionary technological innovation, large-scale infrastructure investment, or long-term planning efforts. Rather, the new travel option is the intercity bus, a mode that had been in decline for decades. After roughly fifty years of steady decline in ridership, intercity buses are suddenly the fastest growing intercity mode in the United States. This growth is due to curbside intercity buses, which pick up and drop off passengers on city street corners rather than in bus terminals. This seemingly small change in operations is at the heart of the dramatic growth in intercity bus travel. On the Northeast Corridor alone, intercity bus travel has more than doubled between 1997 and 2007 from three and a half million to over seven million trips. This research looks beyond the growth in ridership to unpack what these changes mean for the passengers on these buses, for the public at large, for competing intercity providers, and for regulators and local transportation planners. This dissertation poses three broad research questions. First, how and why do passengers choose to take curbside buses? Second, who uses curbside buses and how are these buses influencing their travel behavior? Third, how are curbside buses changing both the intercity bus industry and how have city planners responded to the problems associated with an influx of curbside intercity buses on city streets?
Subject (authority = RUETD)
Topic
Planning and Public Policy
RelatedItem (type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
Rutgers University Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier (type = RULIB)
ETD
Identifier
ETD_5249
PhysicalDescription
Form (authority = gmd)
electronic resource
InternetMediaType
application/pdf
InternetMediaType
text/xml
Extent
ix, 177 p. : ill.
Note (type = degree)
Ph.D.
Note (type = bibliography)
Includes bibliographical references
Note (type = statement of responsibility)
by Nicholas Klein
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Buses
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Bus travel
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Bus stops
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Urban transportation
RelatedItem (type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
Graduate School - New Brunswick Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier (type = local)
rucore19991600001
Location
PhysicalLocation (authority = marcorg); (displayLabel = Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey)
Rutgers University. Graduate School - New Brunswick
AssociatedObject
Type
License
Name
Author Agreement License
Detail
I hereby grant to the Rutgers University Libraries and to my school the non-exclusive right to archive, reproduce and distribute my thesis or dissertation, in whole or in part, and/or my abstract, in whole or in part, in and from an electronic format, subject to the release date subsequently stipulated in this submittal form and approved by my school. I represent and stipulate that the thesis or dissertation and its abstract are my original work, that they do not infringe or violate any rights of others, and that I make these grants as the sole owner of the rights to my thesis or dissertation and its abstract. I represent that I have obtained written permissions, when necessary, from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis or dissertation and will supply copies of such upon request by my school. I acknowledge that RU ETD and my school will not distribute my thesis or dissertation or its abstract if, in their reasonable judgment, they believe all such rights have not been secured. I acknowledge that I retain ownership rights to the copyright of my work. I also retain the right to use all or part of this thesis or dissertation in future works, such as articles or books.