Adrien Friesen

Smart Track Station Evaluation in Toronto: Ridership Forecasting and Feasibility Analysis of Station Catchment Areas ©2015

Toronto, Ontario lacks sufficient rapid transit across the city. The proposed Smart Track plan brings the addition of rail stations to existing GO Train corridors, increasing train frequency and introducing all day, two-way service. The research offers a comprehensive approach to rank the proposed Smart Track stations based on ridership estimates for 2023. Each of the 13 proposed stations assessed are assigned a ridership estimate utilizing 2011 data from the Transportation Tomorrow Survey (TTS) along with population growth forecasts obtained from Environics Analytics. Two ridership estimates are produced, one for an immediate catchment area, and another for an extended.

Transit budgets are generally constrained and it is unlikely that all proposed stations are built. A subset of stations is chosen for a first phase of development based on empirical findings using Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Data from Statistics Canada and the TTS are gathered at three different geographies: the dissemination area, census tract, and traffic analysis zone. The research generates two 2023 ridership estimates for each station, one for the immediate catchment area and one for the extended; the ridership estimates from the TTS are adjusted for expected growth by 2023 using population forecast data from Environics Analytics. Feasibility indicators are explored, examining network density, redevelopment potential, jobs rates, and the prevalence of low income individuals. These indicators are used to assign a feasibility composite score to highlight station area characteristics.

A subset of stations is selected for a phase one of development: Spadina, Liberty, Unilever, Ellesmere, the Airport Corporate Centre, and St. Clair/Weston Rd stations are chosen. The six stations are chosen based primarily on their ridership forecasts as this is argued to be the most important factor in a station’s success. Station area feasibility scores are offered as supplementary to the ridership forecasts, informing on station area characteristics. Some of the study limitations lie in the sources of data, the possibility of selecting different feasibility indicators, and the basing of the 2023 growth coefficient on the forecasted population growth alone. The research serves a practical purpose as it addresses a very current and disputed topic in Toronto, where to invest in transit. Future research is recommended in exploring additional variables for feasibility scoring, as well as making the 2023 growth coefficients more robust. The exploration of alternative station locations is also an area for additional research, as different locations may return even greater ridership potentials and higher feasibility scores than those examined in this paper.