Transferability of Demand Estimation Procedures

Because of the transition of the public transportation system from that of operation by the city to one operated and supported by a newly created regionwide agency, the Downtown People Mover (DPM) program in Houston was deferred for approximately one year. Because of circumstances that had arisen during this hiatus, it was deemed appropriate to conduct a shortterm, but intensive, reexamination of the DPM concept as originally developed in 1976. Because of the time constraints, it was decided to adapt modified demand forecasting procedures that had been applied in preliminary engineering activities for the downtown people mover system proposed for Los Angeles rather than develop original procedures with attendant (and significant) data assembly and calibration efforts. The activities undertaken to adapt, calibrate and verify these procedures to ensure their applicability for Houston DPM analysis are given here.