The best of times and the worst of times: A new best–worst measure of attitudes toward public transport experiences

Attitudes play an important role in determining individual transit behaviour and the measurement of attitudes is relied on by public transit authorities’ world over. Given their role in behaviour and policy making, the accurate measurement of attitudes is of critical importance. Traditional satisfaction scales are prone to bias and on their own they are only a partial measure of attitudes. Given that satisfaction scales have been used to assist with large scale transport infrastructure investment decisions, to aid policy makers examining reactions to alternative policy changes and reform, and to measure the success of new initiatives, deriving robust satisfaction scales should be of critical importance. This paper introduces a dual version of best–worst scaling as an alternative measure of satisfaction. Best–worst scaling is free of the biases inherent in traditional response scales and is ideal for handling the comparative evaluation of large amount of attributes, particularly those which are inherently qualitative. The paper makes a further innovative contribution by proposing a model structure for the joint estimation of satisfaction and importance. Our model shows a better delineation between the attributes used to measure attitudes towards bus use and a more detailed understanding of the relationship between importance and satisfaction; enabling transport operators to better understand what counts most and assess their performance.     

Valuing crowding in public transport: Implications for cost-benefit analysis

This paper investigates the valuation of crowding in public transport trips and its implications in demand estimation and cost-benefit analysis. We use a choice-based stated preference survey where crowding levels are represented by means of specially designed pictures, and use these data to estimate flexible discrete choice models. We assume that the disutility associated with travelling under crowded conditions is proportional to travel time. Our results are consistent with and extend previous findings in the literature: passenger density has a significant effect on the utility of travelling by public transport; in fact, the marginal disutility of travel time in a crowded vehicle (6 standing-passengers/m²) is 2.5 times higher than in a vehicle with available seats. We also compare the effects of different policies for improving bus operations, and the effect of adding crowding valuation in cost-benefit analysis. In doing that, we endogenise the crowding level as the result of the equilibrium between demand and supplied bus capacity. Our results indicate that important benefits may be accrued from policies designed to reduce crowding, and that ignoring crowding effects significantly overestimate the bus travel demand the benefits associated with pure travel time reductions.     

Comparing French carpoolers and non-carpoolers: Which factors contribute the most to carpooling?

Carpooling is an effective solution to major environmental problems but it is insufficiently used, particularly in France. In order to increase carpooling, it is important to understand why people do or not carpool. This study, carried out a large sample of drivers, was aimed at (1) identifying whether or not people carpool, (2) investigating the factual data (e.g. socio-demographics, transportation accessibility) and motivational factors (e.g. attitudes regarding car use, public transportation, environment) upon which carpoolers and non-carpoolers differ, and (3) highlighting the main determinants of the practice of carpooling. An online survey was administered to 1207 French drivers (48% men, ages 19–87) recruited by means of a random-quota method. In our sample, 52.5% of the participants said they were using carpooling. Carpoolers and non-carpoolers were similar in terms of kilometers driven per year, distance to their workplace or schools/universities, and public transportation accessibility. Compared to non-carpoolers, carpoolers were more likely to be women, have children, have positive attitudes toward public transport, and be more environmentally aware. These results suggest various different strategies for increasing the number of carpoolers and the frequency of carpooling use by taking into account the gender of road users.     

Public protests against the Beijing–Shenyang high-speed railway in China

With the rapid expansion of the high-speed railway infrastructure in China, conflicts arise between the interests of local citizens living along the planned tracks and the national interests of governmental authorities and project developers. This paper addresses questions of why and how Chinese citizens mobilize for and participate in protests against high-speed railway projects and to what effect. To this end, a comprehensive study was conducted on the decision-making process, public opinions, and protest actions regarding the plans and site choices for the Beijing–Shenyang high-speed railway from 2008 to 2013, combining quantitative and qualitative methods. In general, local residents are supportive of high-speed railway project construction, but they contest the closed decision-making process and the poor design and siting choices for the track by governmental authorities and companies. After four years of resident protests through formal complaints, lobbying, protest demonstrations, organizing alternative opinion polls, and discussions with authorities, citizens were partially successful in changing the siting of the track, adding protective measures (e.g., tunnels and sound screens), and saving green belts. Two conclusions can be drawn from this case study. First, regardless of the growing legal requirements, public participation in major projects in China is far from a standard practice. Final citizen participation is often preceded by serious conflict. Second, with defined good governance boundaries, there is increasing room for public participation in environmental movements, which does influence final decisions.     

The value of service reliability

This paper studies the impact of service frequency and reliability on the choice of departure time and the travel cost of transit users. When the user has (α, β, γ) scheduling preferences, we show that the optimal head start decreases with service reliability, as expected. It does not necessarily decrease with service frequency, however. We derive the value of service headway (VoSH) and the value of service reliability (VoSR), which measure the marginal effect on the expected travel cost of a change in the mean and in the standard deviation of headways, respectively. The VoSH and the VoSR complete the value of time and the value of reliability for the economic appraisal of public transit projects by capturing the specific link between headways, waiting times, and congestion. An empirical illustration is provided, which considers two mass transit lines located in the Paris area.     

Innovative systems for the transportation disadvantaged: Toward more efficient and operationally usable planning tools

When considering innovative forms of public transport for specific groups, such as demand responsive services, the challenge is to find a good balance between operational efficiency and 'user friendliness' of the scheduling algorithm even when specialized skills are not available. Regret insertion-based processes have shown their effectiveness in addressing this specific concern. We introduce a new class of hybrid regret measures to understand better why the behaviour of this kind of heuristic is superior to that of other insertion rules. Our analyses show the importance of keeping a good balance between short- and long-term strategies during the solution process. We also use this methodology to investigate the relationship between the number of vehicles needed and total distance covered - the key point of any cost analysis striving for greater efficiency. Against expectations, in most cases decreasing fleet size leads to savings in vehicle mileage, since the heuristic solution is still far from optimality.     

Decision Support Systems for Public Transport Management: The Athens Public Transport Authority Project

This article reports on an implementation study of a computerised decision support system for public transport management for the Athens Public Transport Authority (APTA). The study analysed the current situation, specified user requirements, determined system functionality, designed the system architecture, organised the project and, finally, planned dissemination activities. The decision support system covers the main public transport management activities of APTA - transport service provision, economic and financial planning, passenger complaints and suggestions, and personnel management - offering its users the possibility to study the potential effects of their decisions before implementation. To achieve this, the system will consist of a data warehousing system, for the integrated management of a wide variety of data sources, and of online analytical processing tools, for information analysis and scenario testing. The system architecture has been designed to offer robustness, flexibility, rich functionality and open connectivity. The system aims to help APTA reduce operational costs and provide a better transport service, attracting more passengers to public transport and reducing, in the process, congestion and pollution.     

Traffic noise studies in a tropical environment

This paper reports upon a survey of traffic noise annoyance in three residential districts of Trinidad, West Indies. Householder perceptions were solicited by means of a questionnaire survey and direct measurements of traffic noise levels were taken. The results were compared with surveys elsewhere. It was concluded that household status had little effect on annoyance perception, that at L₁₀ levels greater than 70 dB(A) at a dwelling facade the noise level is unacceptable. L₁₀ levels less than 65 dB(A) at the building facade are not perceived as annoying in the environment considered.     

Implementation of interactive transit information kiosks at New York City transit facilities: Analysis of user utilization and lessons learned

Transit Traveler Information Systems (TTIS) comprise a wide range of technologies that transit agencies use to provide reliable and timely transit-related information to customers. The touch-screen interactive information kiosk is an example of these emerging TTIS technologies. This paper examines the implementation of interactive touch-screen information kiosks, known as “On the Go!” Touch-Screen Travel Stations, at Metropolitan Transportation Authority-New York City Transit (MTA-NYCT) facilities in 2011. It analyzes data from passenger intercept surveys, from the kiosks’ built-in application usage logs and from field observations to understand actual passenger utilization of the kiosks and to assess the implications for transit agencies. The field observations also made it possible to obtain a profile of kiosk users, which sheds light on the concept of the “digital divide.” The findings, presented as lessons learned, can help agencies elsewhere develop guidelines and effective strategies for implementing similar interactive transit information systems.     

Continuous approximation for skip-stop operation in rail transit

Operating speed of a transit corridor is a key characteristic and has many consequences on its performance. It is generally accepted that an increased operating speed for a given fleet leads to reduced operating costs (per kilometer), travel and waiting times (three changes that can be computed precisely), an improved comfort and level of service, which can attract new passengers who are diverted from automobile (items harder to estimate precisely). That is why several operation schemes which aim to increase the operating speed are studied in the literature, such as deadheading, express services, and stop skipping.A novel category of solutions to this problem for one-way single-track rail transit is to perform accelerated transit operations with fixed stopping schedules. The concept is quite simple: as the time required for stopping at each station is an important part of travel time, reducing it would be a great achievement. Particular operations that take advantage of this idea already exist. This paper focuses on one of them: the skip-stop operation for rail transit lines using a single one-way track. It consists in defining three types of stations: AB stations where all the trains stop, and A and B stations where only half of the trains stop (stations type A and B are allocated interchangeably). This mode of operation is already described in the literature (Vuchic, 1973, Vuchic, 1976, Vuchic, 2005) and has been successfully implemented in the Metro system of Santiago, Chile.This work tackles the problem with a continuous approximation approach. The problem is described with a set of geographically dependent continuous parameters like the density of stations for a given line. Cost functions are built for a traditional (all-stop) operation and for skip-stop operation as described above. A simple example is presented to support this discussion. Finally, a discussion about the type of scenarios in which skip-stop operations are more beneficial is presented.