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Improved forecasting of urban rail patronage is essential for effective policy development and efficient planning for new rail infrastructure. Past modelling and forecasting of urban rail patronage has been based on legacy modelling approaches and often conducted at the general level of public transport demand, rather than being specific to urban rail. This project canvassed current Australian practice and international best practice to develop and estimate time series and cross-sectional models of rail patronage for Australian mainland state capital cities. This involved the implementation of a large online survey of rail riders and non-riders for each of the state capital cities, thereby resulting in a comprehensive database of respondent socio-economic profiles, travel experience, attitudes to rail and other modes of travel, together with stated preference responses to a wide range of urban travel scenarios. Estimation of the models provided a demonstration of their ability to provide information on the major influences on the urban rail travel decision. Rail fares, congestion and rail service supply all have a strong influence on rail patronage, while a number of less significant factors such as fuel price and access to a motor vehicle are also influential. Of note, too, is the relative homogeneity of rail user profiles across the state capitals. Rail users tended to have higher incomes and education levels. They are also younger and more likely to be in full-time employment than non-rail users. The project analysis reported here represents only a small proportion of what could be accomplished utilising the survey database. More comprehensive investigation was beyond the scope of the project and has been left for future work.

Community development law has assumed pre-eminence among strategies to alleviate entrenched poverty and create sustainable economic and social change within low income communities. Despite the growing prominence of community development within graduate schools and the helping professions, there is no comprehensive textbook to date. This text provides that resource. Community Economic Development Law: A Text for Engaged Learning provides a flexible set of materials that faculty can customize to meet the goals of the stand-alone community development class, or the pedagogical needs of community development law clinics. The text enables students to approach the substantive material as would problem-solving, community-based practitioners. They do so by entering the community of Ourfuture City, whose Old World immigrants built a vanished industrial prosperity; and of its neighborhood, Milkweed Park, whose new immigrants and long-time residents confront the stresses of physical and financial isolation, racial segregation and economic disinvestment. Students assume the roles of advisors and advocates for the families, teachers, clergy, bankers, entrepreneurs, non-profits, public institutions, and activists of this prototypical struggling municipality. The book intersperses overviews of substantive areas that are commonly encountered in community development advocacy with exercises and problems presented by the clients from Milkweed Park. Those areas include entity formation, economic development finance, housing, land use and the emerging field of community justice. The exercises use the substantive law to highlight skills that community development lawyers need to address their clients’ problems and projects, as a basis for in-class discussion and/or preparation for client representation., https://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/books/1046/thumbnail.jpg