This report focuses on setting a strategic target for substantial increases in MBTA ridership. The author examines ridership trends from 2002 through the most recent available data for 20162, tracking annual growth in ridership from September through August for each year on the following six transit modes: heavy rail (the Blue, Orange and Red Lines), light rail (Green Line), commuter rail, bus, trolley bus and ferry service. The report offers projections of potential revenue the MBTA could generate in a range of scenarios.

Driving Innovation: Tolling and Transponders in Massachusetts explores transponder use in other states and encourages cooperation between public agencies and private industry to simplify and rethink customers’ transportation experience.

This study reveals that the MBTA built up a large exposure to financial derivatives and had to pay an estimated $236 million in interest on synthetic swaps for fiscal years 2001 to 2015.

Three bills currently pending in the Massachusetts Legislature would create a regulatory structure for TNCs; two attempt to address customer safety concerns without imposing burdensome regulations, but a third bill includes at least one poison pill. A new Pioneer Policy Brief argues that rather than apply rules that have led to higher costs and lower quality in the taxi industry, Massachusetts should strive to balance adequate customer protections with maintaining the ability of transportation network companies (TNCs) like Uber and Lyft to do business in the commonwealth.

A study of thousands of pages of interest arbitration documents stored in Superior Court argues that full, final and binding interest arbitration involving the MBTA circumvents the power of all three branches of government and leaves a single, unelected individual in the role of decision-maker on contract disagreements with tens of millions of dollars at stake.

This report concerns The Ride, the MBTA’s demand-response paratransit service. Using data from the National Transit Database, the primary federal repository of transit related data and statistics in the United States, and public reports of transit agencies and transportation organizations, this report compares the Ride’s cost efficiency and operating practices with those of other Massachusetts paratransit systems, including those of 13 Massachusetts regional transit systems and of the Human Services Transportation Office (HST) of the Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS).

Last week Pioneer Institute called for the MBTA to be placed in “soft receivership,” or what is often called a finance control board. The purposes of this policy brief are to consider Massachusetts’ experience with two recent receiverships, and to provide useful background for the new special commission established by Governor Charlie Baker to analyze the causes of the current situation at the MBTA and the reforms and governance changes needed to improve it.

For the past few years, officials from the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) and the MBTA Retirement Fund (MBTARF) have promoted the narrative that the T's pension system has been reformed so that benefits are "fair" and it holds no risk for taxpayers.

This policy paper compares the MBTA's bus maintenance costs to those of other bus transit agencies and considers the causes of the T's inordinately high bus maintenance spending. Considering that the MBTA spent a whopping $832 million on bus maintenance between 2000 and 2011, any significant improvement in cost-effectiveness in this area is certain to translate into large savings.

Pioneer's Transportation Dashboard is intended to communicate the performance of the state's transportation system and inform the public about the effectiveness of the state's transportation leadership. As a single-page of primarily visual communication, it necessarily simplifies the complex nature of the transportation system.