City of Edmond, Oklahoma

The City of Edmond contracted with TischlerBise, Inc., to evaluate potential revenue enhancement opportunities for Citylink, the City’s public transportation service. Edmond’s Citylink public transportation service began almost seven years ago and includes four local routes, one express route to and from Oklahoma City that run 12 times per day, and an on‐demand paratransit service. This program has been very successful, as total ridership has increased by almost 300% since service began. The total ridership in 2012 was over 235,000. However, the cost of providing public transportation services continues to go up with the increased demand, and the City did not know where additional funding will come from. To date, the City has successfully used grant funding to help leverage the total program costs. However, grant programs that are relied upon are now being targeted for elimination or having their federal allocations significantly reduced over the next couple years.

In our experience with revenue enhancement strategies across the country, a creative and diverse set of funding sources was needed. To that end, seven different types of revenue sources were evaluated for the City of Edmond’s public transit service, Citylink. These revenue sources were evaluated on fiscal criteria (yield, start‐up cost, and predictability) as well as applicability criteria (public acceptance, administrative ease, and legal status.) The revenue sources that were evaluated include the following: advertising, farebox revenue, vehicle rental fee, vehicle registration fee, a regional transit authority, contracts for service, and parking pricing.