Certification Services and Dashboard Software

The vendor is required to provide automatic passenger counter (APC) certification services and dashboard software to enhance the agency’s ability to report passenger data, and to assess trends in ridership and passenger demand.
- authority currently utilizes iris APC installed on the Authority fixed-route bus fleet for APC ridership Data collection
- Key outcomes and goals for this project include:
1. APC certification
• Produce ridership data of sufficient accuracy to satisfy FTA reporting requirements to the national transit database (NTD), and relieve administrative workload associated with manually conducting passenger counts.
2. Ridership data analysis dashboard
• Generate accurate, timely stop-level on/off ridership data reporting for each route by day of the week for better informed transit planning activities.
- APC certification
1. Benchmarking plan
• The contractor will conduct a side-by-side comparison of manual passenger counts and APC counts for a specified sample of trips to assess the accuracy of the APC system
• A minimum of 50 ridership checks will be reviewed which will include weekday, Saturday, and Sunday bus trips.
• The difference between the manual passenger counts and APC counts for passenger boardings and passenger miles should be within a range of 5%.
• Ridership samples do not need to be drawn randomly but should be representative of the authority bus system
2. Business rules and data cleaning
• Data cleaning and data discards at the block level
• Data cleaning and data discards at the trip level
• Passenger load adjustments at the beginning or end of a trip
3. Sampling plan validation
• The contractor will assess and describe authority current NTD sampling plan methodology and the results of the most recent annual ridership and passenger miles traveled (PMT) data submitted to NTD and will provide a comparison to the data produced using the proposed APC methodology.
• The difference between the manual passenger counts and APC counts for passenger boardings and passenger miles should be within a range of 5%.
• The contractor should provide an explanation for differences between data using the current and new methodology (i.e., sampling error, random sampling estimation), and shall conduct and present an analysis of statistical accuracy.
4. APC maintenance plan
• The contractor shall provide authority with an APC maintenance plan as required by NTD.
• The maintenance plan requires that the APC benchmarking process be repeated every third year using the same process as the original benchmarking plan.
• The maintenance plan should also include procedures for the annual testing and calibration of APC equipment.
5. Certification
• The contractor shall engage the services of a qualified statistician to review the APC benchmarking plan and certify the results for submission to NTD.
- APC data analysis dashboard
• Ridership activity by route, trip, vehicle, operator, and operating division
• Boardings and Alightings by time of day that is provided systemwide, by route, route segment, trip, bus stop, and direction
• Boardings and Alightings by location, route, trip, and direction
• Boardings and Alightings by time of day, route, route segment, trip, bus stop, direction, and systemwide
• Operating statistics by route, trip, direction, vehicle, and operating division
• Level of service – passenger loads by stop
• Ridership profile by service hours (time-of-day) and service day (weekend, weekday, holiday)
• National transit database reporting (e.g., passenger mile statistical reporting)
• Maximum load point by route and trip
• Dwell time
• Running time by trip and trip direction
• Key performance indicator statistics including boardings per revenue hour, boardings per revenue mile, passenger miles per seat mile, average trip length, average trip time.
• Number of APC surveys conducted by route per day, month, and year
• Survey coverage (% of scheduled trips surveyed)
• Bus stop utilization
• On-time performance by route, trip, direction, and stop
-  Software requirements include the following:
• Collection of ridership and schedule adherence data
• Next-day reporting
• Data analysis
• Generation of reports, both canned and customized
• Perform demand forecasts
• Cleaning of incoming APC data
• Wireless, automated data capture of all passenger count information. (i.e., no manual process for retrieving data from vehicles)
• Data validation and normalization against the operating schedule
• Incorporation of temporary routing detours, as needed, into reporting
• Passenger load balancing in accordance with NTD approved methods
• Provision of all relevant NTD reports (i.e., NTD form s-10 information, passenger miles traveled)
• provision of data for use in scheduling and planning activities
• Integration with synchomatics
• Integration with iris APC’S
- Contract Period/Term: 3 years
- Questions/Inquires Deadline: March 28, 2025