[PRCo] Re: Pittsburgh 7-Charles Street abandonment

[Shirley Tennyson]

   In 1998, Utah Transit Authority received 19 percent fare revenue to
cover o & m costs. I suppose the TRAX expansion with Sunday service may
have broght it down to 16 percent systemwide.
Utah T.A. has 23 TRAX cars so I guess their annual cost is about $ 9.2
million. If we assume 70,000 annual car hours at $140 that suggests $
9.8 millon annual cost, so let's guess it is $ 9.5 million.
With 5,4 million annual passengers, the cost may be $ 1.76 per
passenger, so the dollar fare, lewss one-third for transfers and senior
citizens may produce a 38 per cent revenue to cost ratio. Buses may
average 15 percent, or less. Their load factor is very low, but so are
their costs. Mormans are frugal.
Bean counters may look at it differently. Buses have fare boxes. Count
the money. LRT (TRAX) has platform ticket machines so count the money.
There is probably no accounting record on transfers or their value.
There may be no way to assign office sales of wekly passes, etc. by
route so average it out brnging LRT down to the bus average.  I do not
know about TRAX but I do knnw Baltimore accountants give all of the
money to bus, except for pennies.
Flat fares are death on longer lines' fin- ances. The fare, per-mile to
Sandy, Utah is 4.5 cents per-mile, but to Murray the fare is nine cents
per mile average in- cluding transfers and half-fares.
The cost per passenger-mile may be 30 cents, half bus cost, but far in
excess of fare revenue. The UITP once told us that they would have no
transit service if they tried to live on flat fares. Atlanta and Phila
delphia are proving UITP correct.                                  E d
T e n n y s o n