During the Lynx study, we updated the ridership studies that had been conducted by what was then called the tripartite study, which had been conducted by the federal, Quebec, and Ontario governments. We got some very knowledgeable people to come in from SYSTRA, from the SNCF, the consulting arm of the French national railroads.
I was amazed to see how important a ridership study is to the actual design of the system. They have models where you can be tweaking the trip time. If you reduce the trip time, you increase the ridership. If you increase the fare, you reduce the ridership. You push that into a financial model, and through various iterations you can learn the optimum trip time and service level that you need to be offering to have an economically viable system. This ridership study is essential. It's an iterative process that allows you to design the type of system you're looking for.