UC Irvine Institute of Transportation Studies

Transit performance can be evaluated through quantitative indicators. As the provision of efficient and effective transit service are appropriate goals to be encouraged by federal and state governments, these goals are used to develop performance indicators. 

Three efficiency and four effectiveness indicators are described, together with two overall indicators. These nine indicators are analyzed for comparability utilizing operating and financial data collected from public transit agencies in California. 

Performance indicators selected for this study should not be viewed as final. Twenty-one performance indicators proposed by previous studies were reviewed. Theoretical considerations and unavailability or unreliability of data caused omission of several useful measures like passenger-miles. Circumstances such as improved data, emphasis upon goals other than efficiency and effectiveness, and local conditions might warrant the inclusion of indicators deleted from this research.