Perception of Public Transport Quality of Service among Regular Private Vehicle Users in Madrid, Spain

Abstract

Urban traffic levels can be reduced by drawing travelers away from private vehicles (PV) over to using public transport (PT). This modal change can be achieved by either introducing restrictions on PVs or by introducing measures which increase people’s satisfaction with PT. Many studies have shown that quality of service affects customer satisfaction which, in turn, influences the behavioral intentions toward the service; however, these studies have mainly concentrated on PT users. This paper intends to identify the main attributes which influence the perception PV users have about the PT services provided in Madrid (Spain). Ordinal logit models have been applied to an online panel survey with a sample size of 500 regular PV users. To achieve a comprehensive analysis and to deal with heterogeneity in perceptions, 15 models have been developed for the entire sample and for 14 user segments. The results indicate that the inhabitants are satisfied with PT in Madrid and that the most important PT service attributes for PV users are frequency, speed, and intermodality. Frequency is an important attribute for all the segments, whereas speed and intermodality are important for most of the segments. An analysis by segments has identified attributes which, although not important in most cases, are relevant for specific segments. Another interesting finding was that there are two attributes (accessibility and individual space) that were not found to be important in any segment. Findings from this study can be used to develop policies and recommendations for persuading more PV users to use the PT services.

Gender and Age Do Matter: Exploring the Effect of Passengers’ Gender and Age on the Perception of Light Rail Transit Service Quality in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

“…All models in this study did not consider gender and age since the two factors were used only for the segmented purpose. Age and gender were selected for the segmented purpose to avoid data heterogeneity and to conduct a more indepth analysis to identify the relevant aspects for specific segments (male, female, less than 30 years old, and over 30 years old) as recommended by previous research [31,42]. Besides, the findings of this research can serve as a basis for developing specific improvement strategies targeting specific segment [47].…”

“…Service quality is a critical determiner of passenger satisfaction with public transportation [26][27][28][29][30]. According to de Ona et al [31], there is no consensus concerning the factors of public transportation service quality that should be considered in the investigation of the perception of service quality. The attributes vary depending on the authors, location of the study, and type of public transportation, as shown in Table 1.…”

“…In addition, previous studies [31,42] on human behavior have shown that passenger satisfaction is critical to dealing with a high degree of heterogeneity. Various studies in the transportation literature analyzed the heterogeneity of passenger's perception through segmentation based on socio-demographic characteristics such as gender, age, occupation status, education background, income, and others [31,[43][44][45][46][47], frequency of using public transportation [44,45], travel pattern [48], and passenger's attitudes toward public transportation [49,50].…”

Public Transport Quality, Safety, and Perceived Accessibility

“…Thus, there is a possibility that frequent travelers are less concerned with travel information (as they know the routes and routines of the system), whereas individuals using public transport less frequently are in greater need of adequate information in order to experience adequate accessibility. In fact, bearing in mind the close link between accessibility and social inclusion [42], the findings may well have implications for future research on identifying the service quality attributes that will have the greatest influence on building inclusive and sustainable transport systems with the needs and preferences of both frequent and less frequent public transport travelers in mind.…”

Traffic Congestion: Shift from Private Car to Public Transportation

“…Environmental impact has some positive influences on the attitude to use PT [4]. The high quality of service is one of the best ways for pushing PC users and attracts them to PT, the important requirement to know how the PC users perceive briny attribute qualification up the quality of service being provided and which attributes they consider to be of greater, for more attractive the providers need to offer more accessible service [12,13]. Develop public transport connections and improve pedestrian walkway system by make the distance at least 500 m or 15 min walk to near station to attract more people to this sector [14].…”