Public Transport Quality, Safety, and Perceived Accessibility

Abstract

Service quality in public transport is proposed as a key determinant of perceived accessibility, the ease to live the life one wants with the help of the transport system, as low service quality may be a barrier for use, decreasing the ease to participate in daily activities. The first aim was to validate the direct relationship between public transport quality and perceived accessibility. Secondly, we analyzed the mediating role of safety perceptions to better explain the link between service quality and perceived accessibility. Public transport travelers (n = 4944) from five northern European cities were surveyed. Results from PLS-SEM modeling show that service quality has a significant and direct relationship with perceived accessibility, especially regarding functionality. An indirect relationship through travel safety perceptions was also observed, highlighting information and comfort as main drivers. High car use, low public transport use, increasing age, and being a woman were also associated with greater perceived accessibility. City comparisons yielded a number of significant differences. Our results contribute to the research literature by highlighting the importance of service quality in public transport for perceptions of accessibility in daily travel. In particular, we argue that functionality is the core attribute to focus on, and that attributes related to travel safety perceptions should be carefully considered when planning for sustainable transport.

Comfort Evaluation of an Aircraft Cabin System Employing a Hybrid Model

“…Influencing degree R and influenced degree C can be achieved by calculating the sum of rows and columns of the total relation matrix T, respectively, according to Equations (3) and (4). Besides, the central degree (R + C) and relation degree (R − C) were obtained by (r i + c i ) and (r i − c i ).…”

“…At the same time, passengers need to stay together for a period of time with neighbor passengers and crew members. The comfort perceived by passengers is influenced by both objective factors, such as environment, facilities, services [4], etc., and subjective and emotional factors, such as expectations, emotions and preferences, characterized by ambiguity and uncertainty. To date, many scholars have conducted comfort studies through different perspectives.…”

Promoting Sustainable Mobility: A Perspective from Car and Public Transport Users

“…The most significant factor for car and PT users was the wider cycling network and bicycle safety, respectively. There are greater safety and security concerns among PT users [ 48 , 49 ] and this may be one of the reasons why they are more concerned about bicycle safety compared to car users. Another reason may be related to the individual characteristics of PT users, as the majority of them are elderly, women, and children [ 50 , 51 ].…”

Passenger rail transport and mobility: user's view about service level and safety

“…The security, which is one of the attributes of sustainable urban mobility, configured with one of the essential criteria for the conduct of displacement and is a determining factor in the quality of transport (Beecroft and Pangbourne, 2015) and should be properly considered for the sustainable transport planning (Friman, Lättman and Olsson, 2020). In this context, according to Beecroft and Pangbourne (2015), there is also the perception of personal safety, being influenced by the combination of freedom from the violent behavior of other individuals, the environment and the prevention of accidents.…”

“…The adoption of integrated intersectoral policies would be a necessary way so that sustainable mobility could be minimally achieved, including the forgotten population of the peripheries through safe displacements and with the use of more environmentally friendly transport, a point cited by Macário (2010) in which refers to the best dimensioning of the infrastructure capacity, the organization and management of the network, in addition to the network's ability to function efficiently. Therefore, policies intersectoral could improve attributes that enhance the safety, enabling a sustainable urban mobility, which sets up with one of the essential criteria for the conduct of displacement and is a determining factor in the quality of transport as cited by (Beecroft and Pangbourne, 2015), and be an induction factor to be considered for planning sustainable transport (Friman, Lättman and Olsson, 2020).…”