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What We Do

Most of our work is in the area of operations planning – service design, route and network structure, and scheduling.  We also work in a variety of related areas, including:

Short and long range development plans;
Service standards and guidelines;
Market research, including passenger and non-user surveys;
Fare policy analysis;
Strategic planning and policy development;
Research on transportation issues, through Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) studies and  synthesis reports.

The combination of practice and research is a real strength of Dan Boyle & Associates.  The transit industry is an interesting blend of change and continuity.  New technologies and approaches allow us to do certain things more effectively, yet many of the basics of transit planning continue to hold true throughout the decades.

Many of our projects do not fit neatly into one category.  A great example of this type of project is the Greensboro Transit Authority’s HEAT university pass program.  Dan Boyle recommended a college pass program in a 1999 study.  Dan Boyle & Associates worked with GTA, the City of Greensboro, and seven university/college partners to facilitate decisions about routes, service span, and how to pay for it all.  Now in its sixth year, HEAT continues to flourish, with 13,200 students taking over 684,000 transit trips in the academic year 2010-11. 

Another example of a cross-category project is the development of a new Scheduling Manual for the transit industry.  The manual (available as TCRP Report 135) combines a step-by-step guide to creating a basic schedule with examples of more challenging scheduling problems Each chapter has basic, intermediate, and advanced sections.  The advanced sections include discussions of contemporary, cutting-edge issues in scheduling.  Virtually all of these issues affect a transit agency’s bottom line, either directly or indirectly.  While written for the experienced scheduler, these discussions should be of interest to senior managers.   

Who We Are

Daniel BoyleDaniel K. Boyle is President of Dan Boyle & Associates, Inc. and has over 30 years of transit operations planning, consulting, and research experience. Mr. Boyle has worked as project manager on service planning and scheduling, survey analysis, contracting, labor productivity and strategic planning projects.  He has served as project manager for major service planning studies throughout the United States.  Dan is the primary author of the new scheduling manual for the transit industry (TCRP Report 135). He has analyzed fare structures and developed fare policy recommendations for numerous transit systems.  Dan has prepared schedules, runcuts and rosters as part of the major service planning studies.  He served as consultant for TRB Special Report 258, Study on Contracting Transit Services.  He has conducted six TCRP synthesis projects:

Practices in the Development and Deployment of Downtown Circulators;
Transit Fare Arrangement for Public Employees;
Fixed Route Transit Ridership Forecasting and Service Planning Methods;
Passenger Counting Technologies and Procedures (original in 1998, revised in 2008);
Accessibility of Automated Fare Vending and Collection. 

Dan Boyle & Associates, Inc. is certified as a Small Business Enterprise.

Prior to starting his own firm, Mr. Boyle worked for a variety of public and private-sector firms, including the Center for Urban Transportation Research at the University of South Florida, New York City Transit Authority, and NYSDOT. He has been active in Transportation Research Board activities, serving as past Chair of the TRB Committee on Public Transportation Marketing and Fare Policy and as a member of the TRB Committee on Buses and the TRB Committee on Transit Capacity and Quality of Service.  He is currently a member of APTA’s Multimodal Operations Planning Technical Forum.

Our Approach

Dan Boyle & Associates, Inc. strongly believes in working with the client throughout the project, particularly in the development of alternatives, to ensure agency “ownership” in the final recommendations and successful implementation.  We also work closely with stakeholders outside of the agency, where appropriate, to understand their concerns and agendas.  Ongoing informal contact allows us the flexibility to address emerging issues within the overall context of a particular study.

The biggest compliment an agency can pay us is to consider us part of the staff.  Dan Boyle & Associates, Inc. has been fortunate to work on a long-term basis with several clients, including Greensboro Transit Authority, Antelope Valley Transit Authority, and Laguna Beach Transit, and to conduct multiple projects with many others.  The commitment and continuity we bring to these agencies give us an in-depth knowledge of the transit system, which in turn strengthens our credibility with Boards of Directors and City Councils.

We value these long-term relationships.  At the same time, we seek out one or two new clients each year to broaden our experience and to find and share new ways to approach transit issues.  In the past year, we worked with a firm specializing in management issues, and the combination of transit and management expertise produced more robust recommendations than either approach alone could have achieved.

Personal Things You May Not Know

How does anyone become a transit planner?  In my case, I owe it to my parents, specifically to their willingness to take me on subway rides when I was 7 or 8 years old so I could stand at the window in the front of the train, learn all the stops and eventually become a motorman.  That never happened.  Looking back, I’m pretty sure riding the subways was the last thing either my mom or my dad wanted to do on a day off, since both commuted to jobs in Manhattan from the Bronx.  On the bright side, for 30 cents (two fares in those days) I was completely happy and absorbed for two hours while my mom or dad could sit and relax.

161st Street Station in the Bronx

If you couldn't get to the front of the train, looking out the back window (left at the 161st Street Station in the Bronx) was the next-best. See more great photos here.
 

It was a winding path from there to where I am today.  After receiving my master’s degree in City and Regional Planning from Cornell, I spent the next four years as an FM disk jockey and talk-show host.  College radio was so much fun that I jumped at the chance to be on the air at WQBK-FM in Albany.  It wasn’t exactly a plan, but my time in radio gave me the confidence and ease to speak in any public forum.  To this day, no one believes that I was once really shy.

In my “spare” time now, I am involved with the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), serving as president of the San Diego Ted Williams chapter.  We get together a few times each year for meetings, with speakers ranging from former players and front office staff to umpires and researchers exploring baseball from new angles.  You can check out the SABR website.    

 

Dan with Merv Rettenmund, former outfielder and batting coach, outside Petco Park before SABR meeting.

 

 

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Dan Boyle & Associates, Inc.
13084 Signature Point, #150
San Diego, California 92130
Phone (858) 259-6515
Fax (858) 259-2305
dan@danboyleandassociates.com
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