Different transport stakeholders have different needs for transport infrastructure and services. Achieving stakeholder satisfaction implies a total quality management (TQM) that continuously improves service quality. However, few studies have discussed service quality in relation to urban transport systems. This study proposes an instrument based on SERVQUAL for measuring urban transport service quality from a stakeholder perspective. The proposed instrument is developed and tested through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. The gaps between stakeholder expectations and actual received and the gaps associated with stakeholders' expectations and the perceptions of these expectations by professionals are examined. Importance-performance analysis is used to construct a service attribute evaluation map for determining resource allocation to improve service quality. The application is illustrated through an empirical study to discuss the managerial implications in the Taipei metropolitan area. The analytical results reveal the existence of gaps and that stakeholders are more concerned with reliability and safety dimensions.

The increasing damages and losses bring requests to improve coping capacities for extreme conditions on the identification of and improvement to socioeconomic vulnerabilities. Disruptions to critical infrastructure (CI) influence the capacities for resilience and sustainable daily operations both directly and by causing failures in one system that in turn affects other systems. Among the transportation systems widely identified as national CI that should be protected, ports provide substantial employment, industrial activity, along with national and regional development. This study thus examines the vulnerability of port failures from an interdependency perspective. Fourteen vulnerable factors are developed by literatures as well as in-depth interviews. Four international commercial ports in Taiwan are employed as empirical cases to evaluate port vulnerability through semi-quantitatively systematic methods, including fuzzy cognitive maps and sensitivity model, while geographic information systems are used to clarify the spatial-functional interdependency. In addition to the underestimated vulnerability because of omitted interdependency, analytical results reveal that capacity and efficiency significantly affect port vulnerability. Increasing local cargo bases and co-opetition are suggested to improve the port vulnerability. The proposed assessment framework helps decision-makers understand the interdependent vulnerabilities and adopt appropriate strategies for the mitigation of losses.

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Different transport stakeholders have different needs for transport infrastructure and services. Meeting the needs of stakeholders implies a tradeoff of benefits and costs between supply and demand and creates issues of transport diversity. However, the literature has largely ignored these issues. This study aims to provide a framework evaluating transport diversity to promote quality of life. Transport diversity is defined as the satisfied level of stakeholder needs in this study and measured as the gap between the expected goal and present values of stakeholder needs in the form of the Shannon-Weaver index. Transport diversity can assess whether the level to which important needs are satisfied equitably, and monitor whether the transportation system is moving toward sustainability via confirming the targets and the basic level of quality of life. This study hopes that the conceptual framework developed can assist decision makers in understanding the relationship between transport diversity and sustainability, and provide a new assessment method for improvements in quality of life.

Effects of price promotions for high-speed rail (HSR) on the choice behaviours of potential consumers are analysed for public transit marketing purposes. A questionnaire survey, with 300 valid samples collected from private vehicle drivers with longdistance trips through freeways, is conducted. Factor analysis is employed to determine the constructs of service quality, while a discrete choice model considering individual heterogeneity, namely a mixed logit model, with stated preference is utilised to explore the diversion of passengers from private vehicle drivers due to price promotions. Analytical results reveal that service qualities, socio-economic characteristics and price promotions significantly affect choice behaviours. Finally, some strategies are developed from these analytical results to help a HSR operator increase its market share.

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Maximizing transport diversity is critical to the equitable achievement of stakeholder needs. Resource allocation policies help planners decide when and how to invest transportation infrastructure and services. However, policies for improving transport diversity are difficult to design, implement, and quantify because of the uncertainty, feedback interaction, and complexity of system relationships. This study proposes a hybrid model integrating system dynamics, cognitive maps, and a sensitivity model to tackle the problems. The model application is illustrated through an empirical study to enhance the managerial implications in the Taipei metropolitan area.

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