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From the Director, Department of Transportation and Public Works, and the Managing Director, Milwaukee County Transit System (MCTS), submitting an informational report regarding the elimination of service to Arab World Festival. (INFORMATIONAL ONLY UNLESS OTHERWISE DIRECTED BY THE COMMITTEE)
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POLICY
MCTS frequently provides informational updates to the Committee on transit issues.
BACKGROUND
MCTS provides shuttle service from downtown Milwaukee to all summer lakefront festivals. Service travels along Wisconsin Avenue and operates shortly before and after each event. These services are regularly evaluated in terms of ridership, productivity, and the level of local investment.
Our review indicated that shuttle service to Arab World Festival has performed at a very low level compared to service operated to other festivals. This event generated the least number of passengers (150 rides over three days) and was the least efficient of any service (4.6 passengers per bus hour) in 2010. For the sake of comparison, the next lowest performing festival generated 704 rides at 17.6 PBH. The public funding per passenger of service to Arab World Festival was $23.47 (four times higher than the next event).
In 2010, MCTS did take steps to lower the cost of operating service to this event. The frequency of service to last year’s event was reduced from 15 minutes to every half hour. In addition, MCTS contacted the sponsors of the festival (as well as the other festivals) to inform them that bus service could be discontinued if ridership levels do not improve significantly. It should be noted that none of the sponsor organizations contribute any funds towards the cost of service.
Despite efforts to improve ridership and service efficiency, Arab World Festival generates a very low level of ridership at a very high cost. Given this, service to Arab World Festival will be discontinued for 2011. However, regular transit service terminating at the Downtown ...
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