Passengers’ Perception of and Behavioral Adaptation to Unreliability in Public Transportation

Abstract

Reliability is regularly cited by users of public transportation as one of the most important qualities of service. However, it is not yet well understood how transit riders are affected by unreliability, particularly in the long term. To gain a better understanding of the importance of reliability, a survey focusing on users of San Francisco's public transportation system in California was developed to investigate the link between people's past experiences of unreliability and the adaptation strategies that they used. Respondents were asked to rate the importance of a number of reliability aspects; the aspects found to be most important were the absence of a gap at a transfer stop and the ability to walk up to a stop and leave within 10 min. Users also reported that they considered reliability when planning trips. Common strategies for handling unreliability were using services and routes deemed more reliable and using real-time information. In addition, an ordinal logit model linking past experiences of unreliability to a reduction in transit use was estimated. The most significant negative experiences that drove a reduction in transit use were delays perceived to be the fault of the transit agency, long waits at transfer points, and being prevented from boarding because of crowding. These results have implications in transit planning: passengers may prefer more frequent service with occasional crowding over less frequent buses that are larger and less crowded. In addition, the growing use of real-time information services will continue to affect how people view transit service and perhaps even intensify the unattractiveness of infrequent service.

The impact of real-time information on bus ridership in New York City

“…First, RTI can help passengers adapt to unreliability of transit service, which was an important finding of a recent survey of current and former transit riders in the San Francisco Bay Area (Carrel et al, 2013). Second, RTI users can time their departure from their origin to minimize wait times at stops/stations; moreover, real-time information can help to reduce the perception of time while waiting at stops/ stations.…”

Trends in Mobile Transit Information Utilization: An Exploratory Analysis of Transit App in New York City

“…Many early studies focused on the effects of at-stop signage on transit riders' perceptions and behavior (e.g., Hickman and Wilson 1995;Dziekan and Vermeulen 2006;Dziekan and Kottenhoff 2007;Tang and Thakuriah 2011). More recently, the literature pertains primarily to the passenger and transit agency benefits of providing real-time information via mobile and web-based devices (Zhang et al 2008;Ferris et al 2010;Watkins et al 2011;Tang and Thakuriah 2012;Tang, Ross, and Ha 2012;Carrel et al 2013;Gooze et al 2013;Brakewood et al 2014;Brakewood, Macfarlane, and Watkins 2015). Only two prior references have specifically examined backend data from real-time information transit applications, and these are briefly summarized in the following paragraphs.…”

Road pricing and road provision in Australia: Where are we and how did we get here?

“…public transport have made similar conclusions: people are happy for governments to fund or subsidise public transport for others, but will continue to drive private vehicles for their own transport requirements (ARRB 2016;Carey 2016;Carrel et al 2013). 3 And these trends are not necessarily consistent over time: a person living in high-density housing in Surry Hills in Sydney in the 1920s and catching the tram to work is a far cry, for example, from a person living in high-density housing in Surry Hills today and commuting on light rail.…”