Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission

SmartMoves Connections represents an innovative approach to a regional transit plan. The plan puts forth four core goals: identify locations for multimodal transit hubs, identify corridors for multimodal improvements, improve regional transportation coordination and involve riders and stakeholders in the planning process. The Team employed aerial photography that had been processed with machine-learning and was combined with Big Data origin/destination statistics to find Transit Supportive Land Use Clusters (TSLU) and Critical Corridors. The act of producing a TSLU map was unlike any other that has been deployed at the regional scale. Computer simulations of the Multimodal Hub and Corridor treatments brought the concepts to life by showing how buses, bikes and people interact.

The team then used a first-of-its-kind process where aerial photography data from Urban Footprint was analyzed to produce a map of TSLU clusters where multimodal potential could be inferred. Some of the results of the SmartMoves Connections project are already coming to pass. The plan developed at the Transit Operations Workshop became the basis for a development proposal in Cranberry Township which includes a Multimodal Hub and new transit service. The Commission, Port Authority and PennDOT have applied for a major federal grant to build a bus only ramp from I-376 to the East Busway, much as described in the TranSystems simulation. SmartMoves is a well-organized plan with lots of case studies. It starts with clearly articulated goals and marches though points on how to get there. While it is specific for those responsible for implementation, it also asks the lay person what type of transit user you are and then describes how to make use of the plan.