Friday, February 4, 2011

More Riders are Chosing Rapid Ride A!

King County Metro has a long press release here about increased ridership on Rapid Ride A (Federal Way to Tukwilla).

The short story is ridership is up 25% since the service started compared to previous bus service there and costumer satisfaction on the line is way up (from 85% compared to 52% satisfaction with the previous 174.

More on the survey:

And a recently conducted on-board survey of more than 500 A Line passengers reveals a variety of reasons why RapidRide has become a popular travel alternative. In addition to achieving an overall 84 percent satisfaction rating compared to a 52 percent satisfaction rating on the route it replaced, the A Line scored high with passengers in several other areas, such as:
  • 81 percent overall satisfaction with how long their bus trip takes,
  • 83 percent satisfaction with how often buses run during peak hours,
  • 88- 90 percent satisfaction with Metro’s new hybrid-electric RapidRide coaches and on-board features, and
  • 81 percent satisfied with the A Line getting them to their destination on time.

Great news!  Bus Rapid Transit (and BRT Light as I like to call systems like Rapid Ride) is an important part of the transportation solution in Washington State.  I had the pleasure to explore the Rapid Ride A line a few weeks ago and I was generally very impressed.  Aside for a 20 minute wait in Tukwilla, when the buses should have been running every 10 minutes, it was a very smooth, comfortable, and relatively quick ride.  While it is far from a true BRT it is a big improvement over traditional local bus service.

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