Where is the happy transit rider? Evaluating satisfaction with regional rail service using a spatial segmentation approach

Abstract

Public transit agencies are delivering transport services in a rapidly changing and highly competitive transportation market. Ensuring rider's satisfaction in such an environment has led several public transit agencies to adopt different marketing strategies. For example, market segmentation analyses are commonly employed by transit agencies to identify groups of users, which are subsequently used as a base for developing policies and strategies aimed at improving customer satisfaction. However, previous studies adopting this market segmentation approach have predominantly ignored spatial and contextual factors related to the transit network and the built environment of where a user resides, resulting in network-wide policies that are difficult to implement especially for agencies with scarce resources. This study presents a new segmentation approach that incorporates spatial and contextual factors in addition to other rider's preferences and satisfaction levels with commuter rail service in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, Canada. Including these factors in a market segmentation analysis has enabled us to recommend service interventions at a local and finer scale compared to previous studies, while at the same time providing the greatest impact on a specified segment of riders. This research provides transit planners and policy makers with a spatial segmentation approach, which can be used to maximize the benefits of service improvements intended to increase satisfaction with public transit among certain groups of users in a region.

Preferences in regional public transport: a literature review

“…These differences in city and region size mean different realities in the public transport systems. For instance, crowding is a common issue around large cities (see [38,41]), while other types of comfort-related attributes are more important in less densely populated areas (see [20,40,42,43]). Geographic context is indicated in the review when relevant.…”

“…Also, evidence from the suburban railway network in Paris suggests that passengers travelling for other purposes than commuting value punctuality even more than commuters [69]. A related issue is communicating information about service disruptions, which is highly valued among all passengers [41,69]. Specifically, explicit information about the expected duration of delays is particularly appreciated [69].…”

Bus Rapid Transit-oriented Development: An Identification of Bus Rapid Transit System Passengers’ Modal Shift Potential Considerations

“…When trying to understand the various transit systems passengers' behaviour and preference, a number of researchers suggested to pay attention to the passengers' background (Chakrabarti, 2017;Satiennam et al, 2016;Shen et al, 2016;Van Lierop & El-Geneidy, 2016;Ramezani et al, 2017;Grise & El-Geneidy, 2018;Newbold & Scott, 2018). Within their researches, they found that passengers' behavior and preference vary through various backgrounds.…”

“…Passengers' behavior and preference are not homogenous, though the magnitude of the heterogeneity may vary as well. Some researchers went further by classifying transit passengers into some groups and analyzing the behavior and preference of each group's members (Van Lierop & El-Geneidy, 2016;Grise & El-Geneidy, 2018;Newbold & Scott, 2018).…”

Congestion Evaluation of Pedestrians in Metro Stations Based on Normal-Cloud Theory

“…There are no uniform criteria for grading of the crowding levels, while it was mainly referred to as the passenger standing density. In some countries [29][30][31][32], such as Australia, The Netherlands, Chile, USA, etc., the standards for the passenger standing density were divided into two categories: the comfortable criterion with a standing density of three passengers per square meter and the crowding criterion with a standing density of six passengers per square meter. For example, in the US, the Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual (TCQSM) [33] provides guidance and reference for measuring passenger crowding.…”