Building a Regional Transit Planning Tool for the El Paso Borderplex

David Galicia

by David Galicia

Reliable public transportation is essential to connecting people with jobs, education, health care and other critical services. In the El Paso Borderplex, that challenge extends across multiple transit providers, jurisdictions and travel patterns shaped by both regional and cross-border movement.

Researchers at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute’s (TTI’s) Center for International Intelligent Transportation Research (CIITR) are working to address that complexity through the development of an Intelligent Regional Transit Planning Model for the El Paso Borderplex. The project is designed to give researchers, planners and transit agencies a more comprehensive tool for evaluating how transit systems across the region work together and how future service changes could affect riders.

The project brings together data from Sun Metro, El Paso Transportation Authority, the South Central Regional Transit District, the El Paso Metropolitan Planning Organization and the Instituto Municipal de investigación y Planeación in Ciudad Juárez to support more coordinated, data-driven planning across the region.

A planning laboratory for transit

For a general audience, the model can be thought of as a planning laboratory for public transportation.

Instead of making changes directly in the field, researchers and planners can use the model to test different scenarios before they are implemented. Those scenarios may include route changes, schedule adjustments, fare modifications, service expansions or reductions, changes in origin-destination patterns, ridership forecasts and future land-use or demographic shifts.

By evaluating those possibilities in a model first, agencies can better understand how proposed changes may affect ridership, accessibility, transfers, service gaps and overall system performance.

Why the Borderplex matters

Transit planning in the El Paso Borderplex is unique because the region is both multi-jurisdictional and international. Travel patterns extend beyond city and county boundaries and are influenced by economic, social and transportation connections across the U.S.–Mexico border.

That makes El Paso an important setting for developing and testing a regional transit model. The area includes connections among Texas, New Mexico and Chihuahua, Mexico, as well as cross-border travel between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez. One example is the binational Transborde fixed-route service connecting the Ciudad Juárez airport and El Paso airport through the Paso del Norte International Bridge.

By incorporating both regional and cross-border travel patterns, the model can help researchers better understand how people move across the Borderplex and how transit services can be evaluated as part of a broader regional network.

Supporting better decisions

Phase I of the project focused on collecting, organizing and standardizing the data needed to build the model. That included GTFS transit data, service information, socioeconomic and land-use data, historical ridership information and fare data from participating agencies.

Phase II builds on that foundation by developing, validating and operationalizing the model so it can be used to evaluate real planning questions.

Once complete, the model will support a range of planning applications, including ridership forecasting, route and schedule evaluation, service coordination, cross-border integration strategies, customized transit mobility areas, transfer-center analysis and Title VI analysis.

For transit providers and planning agencies, that means having a stronger data-driven foundation for evaluating future investments, identifying underserved areas and improving coordination across systems.

Looking ahead

While the model is being developed for the El Paso Borderplex, its potential applications extend beyond one region. The approach could be adapted for other metropolitan or border regions facing similar transit coordination challenges.

The project also points to potential future partnerships with federal, state, regional and local transportation organizations interested in improving transit planning, service evaluation and cross-border mobility.

The Intelligent Regional Transit Planning Model for the El Paso Borderplex – Phase II is funded through CIITR. The project team includes David Galicia, Erik Vargas and Rafael Aldrete of TTI, with software development support from Rodney Burner of ServiceEdge Solutions. The project also reflects contributions from TTI student researchers during Phase I.

CIITR would like to thank Sun Metro, El Paso County Transit, the South Central Regional Transit District, the El Paso Metropolitan Planning Organization and ServiceEdge Solutions for their partnership and contributions to this work.