Climatic effects on bus durability

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to provide climate peer groups that may be used in combination with any set of Section 15 indicators as a guide to understanding the impact of climate on participating transit authorities. The method of deriving these climate peer groups involves applying three climatic indicators to partition 203 transit authorities into "harsh," "intermediate," and "benign" climate peer groups. The results are mapped and are displayed in tabular form. The simple numerical procedure is checked using elementary linear algebra, and the resulting climate peer groups are again mapped and displayed in tabular form. The hypothesis that bus durability is adversely affected in harsh climates is then tested, using data from Section 15 indicators, to illustrate the method of employing these climate peer groups. Section 15 indicators on "age distribution," "distance between road calls," and "vehicle miles per maintenance dollar," partitioned by climate class, provide support for this hypothesis. Implications resulting from the testing of this hypothesis suggest which climate peer groups might benefit from additional evaluation of their maintenance strategy and which climate peer groups might serve as maintenance models for others.