Development and test of the Perceived Accessibility Scale (PAC) in public transport

Perceived Accessibility of Public Transport as a Potential Indicator of Social Inclusion

“…The PAC consists of four items that measure the ease of travel ("It's easy to do [daily] activities with public transport"), the ability to live the life one wants ("If public transport was my only mode of travel, I'd be able to continue living the way I want"), and accessibility to activities ("It's possible to do the activities I prefer with public transport" and "Access to my preferred activities is satisfying with public transport"). These items capture the overall level of perceived accessibility on self-assessment scales, from 1-7 (1 = I disagree 7 = I completely agree) which are then indexed into an overall accessibility score, based on previous psychometric findings (Lättman et al, 2015). Cronbach's Alpha for this sample revealed a satisfying reliability of α = .88 (N=747).…”

“…Previous studies encompassing perceived accessibility have not been equipped with measures to quantify the results. The perceived accessibility scale (Lättman et al, 2015) was developed with the aim of capturing how easy it is to live a satisfactory life with the help of the chosen, or designated, travel mode. Without reliable measures of perceived accessibility, it is argued that evaluating and following up goals and visions regarding accessibility, from a user perspective, will be difficult, thus creating a broad and generalizable measure of perceived accessibility was needed in order to investigate or compare accessibility between different transport modes, between different groups of people, in different areas, for different purposes, or in different transport systems.…”

“…The Perceived Accessibility Scale (PAC) is an aggregate measure of perceived accessibility (Lättman et al, 2015), developed for use in transportation. It is easy to use and distribute; due to its compactness and interpretable outcome, making it useful not only within research, but also as a tool on the policy and planning levels.…”

“…This gap in measuring accessibility has been pointed out by researchers for years, urging for the inclusion of subjective accessibility (Budd & Mumford, 2006;Curl et al, 2011;Farrington, 2007;Handy & Niemeier, 1997;Stanley & VellaBrodrick, 2009;van Wee & Geurs, 2011), but up until now not much has been done. In 2015, we developed a quantifiable measurement for perceived accessibility in public transport, the Perceived Accessibility Scale (Lättman et al, 2015). Perceived accessibility is based on individual assessments of accessibility, rather than on objective estimates, and in the current study, the work is continued by further exploring perceived accessibility in relation to transport quality, safety, travel frequency, and age, looking for significant determinants.…”

“…trip planning, comfort, or safety) increase the perceived accessibility and make life easier to live using the chosen mode of transport. This study (n=750) focuses on the perceived accessibility of public transport, captured using the Perceived Accessibility Scale PAC (Lättman, Olsson, & Friman, 2015). More specifically, this study aims to determine how level of quality affects the perceived accessibility in public transport.…”