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
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.
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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