Local bus systems reduce employee turnover! (quote of the week)

This.  Is.  So.  Important.

We find that the size of the fixed-route bus system (measured as real per capita operating expenditures) is negatively related to employee turnover rates [for local employers]: An increase in bus systems’ per capita operating expenditures is associated with a decrease in employee turnover. Decreases in employee turnover represent cost savings to businesses by reducing the costs associated with training new workers and rebuilding firm-specific knowledge or better employee-employer matches. These results suggest that access to fixed-route bus transit should be a component of the economic development strategy for communities not only for the access to jobs that it provides low-income workers but also for the benefits accruing to businesses that hire these workers.

Dagney Faulk and Michael J. Hicks,
"The Impact of Bus Transit on Employee Turnover:
Evidence from Quasi-experimental Samples"
Urban Studies

This also means that new employers need to read this before they choose their location!

I could wish that they had measured transit quantity using revenue hours rather than expenditures, because revenue hours are a better measure of service to the customer.  But still, this is a big deal.  Eric Jaffe also has the story at Citylab.

2 Responses to Local bus systems reduce employee turnover! (quote of the week)

  1. david vartanoff May 7, 2015 at 11:21 am #

    No surprise there. Would be interesting to see a narrow study as to which fare/transfer/pass systems have similar effects. I’m betting the least rider hostile fare structures help foster usage/access to work and other trips.

  2. John May 10, 2015 at 4:14 pm #

    I mis-read this at first. I thought you meant that the transit agencies themselves had lower turnover, but it seems that you are saying the region as a whole has lower employee turnover. Interesting.