Foursquare ITP led a comprehensive license plate survey of vehicles using its Park & Ride facilities to analyze usage patterns, estimate user demographics, and gather data to support future planning and operational strategies. METRO needed a comprehensive snapshot of the spatial and demographic dynamics of the agency’s Park & Ride facilities to identify opportunities to improve facility utilization, enhance multimodal accessibility, and better connect transit-dependent populations to high-quality services.
Foursquare ITP coordinated the survey of vehicles in 27 Park & Ride facilities over the course of three days. Based on photographs of vehicles surveyed, our team developed a machine learning process to extract text from plates and queried the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) Motor Vehicle Information database to obtain the registration information for surveyed vehicles. Using these addresses, we performed demographic analyses of lot users and modeled the distance drive to reach the facility, and compared this alongside transit service levels. We also performed analyses of lot utilization and ridership to identify trends.
The results of this work are being used to understand customers, develop marketing strategies, inform rideshare/carpooling initiatives and emissions reduction campaigns, as well as validate mode share data and transit demand modeling. METRO plans to expand its survey efforts to additional parking facilities to inform additional planning initiatives.
Solutions and Outcomes
- Oversaw the survey of vehicles in 27 Park & Ride facilities over the course of three days.
- Photographed vehicle license plates, and extracted and validated the text from license plates photographed using optical character recognition.
- Queried the Texas DMV Motor Vehicle Information database to obtain the registration information for surveyed vehicles.
- Georeferenced registered addresses and performed demographic analyses for each Park & Ride facility.
- Analyzed lot utilization, ridership trends, and the relationship between distance traveled to reach the lot and service levels.
- Developed lot profiles summarizing findings.