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    <title>Transport Research International Documentation (TRID)</title>
    <link>https://trid.trb.org/</link>
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    <copyright>Copyright © 2026. National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.</copyright>
    <docs>http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss</docs>
    <managingEditor>tris-trb@nas.edu (Bill McLeod)</managingEditor>
    <webMaster>tris-trb@nas.edu (Bill McLeod)</webMaster>
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      <title>Transport Research International Documentation (TRID)</title>
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      <link>https://trid.trb.org/</link>
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      <title>Synthesizing Microtransit and Fixed Route Transit via Rider Hand Off to Improve Transit Efficiency</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/2640190</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Microtransit programs can improve local mobility, but they often operate separately from fixed route bus networks. This separation can create gaps in connectivity and reduce the potential efficiency of both systems. This project will study how rider hand off strategies, where microtransit vehicles bring passengers directly to fixed route transit, can strengthen system performance. Using data from CTtransit, microtransit logs, and synthetic demand models, the research will simulate multimodal operations and evaluate how pickup schedules and transfer points influence wait times, travel times, and network utilization.

The project will develop an optimization framework to identify operating strategies that improve rider transfers and increase the efficiency of both modes. Scenario testing will measure the effects of integration on cost, ridership patterns, and service quality. The results will provide agencies with practical guidance on how to coordinate microtransit and fixed route services in ways that improve reliability and expand access to transit. These findings can support broader efforts to enhance mobility in Connecticut and inform similar initiatives in other regions.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 11 Dec 2025 13:47:25 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/2640190</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>How to ensure sufficient access to public transport in rural areas? A comparative analysis of institutional designs for multimodal integration</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/2583843</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Integrating traditional public transport services with flexible modes (paratransit and shared mobility) may enhance accessibility in rural areas by efficiently using resources. However, integrating transport modes across spatial scales increases institutional complexity, requiring fit institutional designs to achieve sufficient modal availability. This paper explores how institutional designs for multimodal integration can ensure sufficient modal availability by comparing modes in three case studies in the Netherlands. Based on a literature review and expert workshops (n = 16), a design framework was developed comprising six parameters for intermodal comparison: initiative, decision-making level, service requirements, network size, risk allocation, and contract flexibility. Data collection proceeded through focus group discussions and interactive surveys with public servants (n = 23) to inventory the institutional designs in the cases. Results indicate a ‘laissez-faire’ approach to the institutional design of shared mobility, while public transport and paratransit institutional designs are more interventionist. Overall, rural cases show greater risks born by authorities combined with decentralised decision-making. Design alternatives for multimodal integration vary by transport mode. Risk allocation and contract flexibility are crucial for consistent public transport. Paratransit contracts should be more flexible to coordinate with demand-responsive services. Considerable network size and government risk, supported by centralised decision-making, are key to setting high service requirements for shared mobility to become a full-fledged complement to public transport. These findings can guide policymakers in crafting new institutional designs based on each transport mode’s contribution to modal availability rather than fitting transport modes within existing designs.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2025 08:27:58 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/2583843</guid>
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    <item>
      <title>Operational and Service Factors When Integrating or Consolidating ADA Paratransit and On-Demand Services</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/2598537</link>
      <description><![CDATA[As public transit agencies continue to evolve in response to changing community needs, the integration of demand response transportation (DRT) services has emerged as one opportunity to expand access for customers. Among the most promising developments is the commingling of Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) complementary paratransit trips with general public trips using on-demand microtransit platforms. This novel approach offers the potential for greater efficiency, improved service delivery, and optimized use of public resources. However, commingling of services requires a thoughtful balance of compliance, customer expectations, and operational realities. The synthesis documents the current state of the practice in integrating or consolidating ADA paratransit and general public transit with on-demand microtransit service. Drawing from a literature review, a national survey of 26 transit providers, and in-depth case examples of five transit providers, the study presents an understanding of the service models, software platforms, policies, and practices that make integration possible. This report concludes with identifying key findings, barriers and challenges, and areas for future research to inform and support the continued development of commingled transit services.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Sat, 13 Sep 2025 17:46:25 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/2598537</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Paratransit in the digital era: A comparative systematic literature review and transferability of developed-country models to developing countries</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/2583337</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Paratransit systems, characterized by flexibility and demand responsiveness, bridge critical gaps in urban mobility for low-income and marginalized populations. In the digital era, emerging technologies offer opportunities to improve efficiency, accessibility, and sustainability. This study presents a comparative review of minibus-based paratransit in developed and developing contexts by combining a bibliometric analysis of literature published between 2016 and April 2025 with a qualitative assessment of case studies and pilot projects. The findings show that in developing countries, these systems remain largely less formal and user-driven, serving both trunk and feeder functions. In contrast, paratransit services in developed countries operate under formal regulations and employ advanced information and communication technology to serve older adults and individuals with disabilities. Building on these insights, this study proposes an integrated demand-responsive transit transferability framework for action that covers technology, service design, integration, and business model components, each supported by specific regulatory enablers and practical strategies. The framework guides policymakers, transit agencies, and technology providers in adapting digital solutions across diverse socioeconomic and infrastructural environments. Key challenges include regulatory fragmentation, gaps in digital literacy, and financing constraints. The study concludes by outlining priority research directions to improve driver certification, advance multimodal integration, and develop sustainable digital business models that balance cost effectiveness, inclusivity, and environmental objectives.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 09 Sep 2025 08:44:18 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/2583337</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis--The Transit IDEA Program. IDEA 109. Simulation-based Decision-Making Tool for Microtransit Service Evaluation and Optimization</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/2572333</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Microtransit refers to an on-demand, dynamically routed, mobile-app-powered shuttle service with rider walking exchange. Microtransit is an emerging transit service that seems to improve riders’ experience by operating small-sized shuttles that can offer flexible routes and on-demand scheduling services. It is essentially a “smart bus service,” similar to the service of transportation network companies such as Uber and Lyft in which riders are required to book a trip using a smartphone app and get picked up in minutes at a corner by exchanging a short walk distance (walking exchange) or just waiting at the original address (door-to-door). The user may be matched with other passengers heading in the same direction to share their trips, defined as “ridesharing.” An increasing number of places are deploying microtransit to serve their residents and visitors, such as L.A. Metro in Los Angeles, California and King County Metro in Seattle, Washington. Most microtransit services integrate into existing public transit systems, such as city buses, to enhance transit service where running fixed-route buses is rather challenging.

This project is aimed at developing a simulation-based decision-making toolkit to help transit agencies evaluate microtransit service performance, optimize its operation, and make evidence-based decisions on resource distribution. Existing simulation models do not adequately represent on-demand microtransit with ride walking exchange, which makes it difficult to optimize the system and make decision with some assurance. The proposed open source microtransit simulation toolkit will be flexible and can be easily modified to apply to any place or community in any scenario. 

The proposed microtransit simulation toolkit will be based on the Simulation of Urban Mobility (SUMO) package. The flexibility and compatibility of the toolkit as a platform will enable its integration with rider walking exchange and vehicle operations, such as pick up and drop off (PUDO) strategy, or as “plugin-and-play” functional modules. A greedy heuristic shuttle routing approach will be developed for efficiently solving large scale shuttle-rider matching and routing problem, which is a major road blocker for simulating real world microtransit systems. Partnering with the city of Wilson, North Carolina, the proposed microtransit simulation toolkit will be calibrated and validated with real-world traffic and microtransit operation data. In addition, a simulation-based recursive framework will be proposed to quantitively describe the interplay between microtransit’s ride demand and behavior, supply (e.g., system operation and design) and service (e.g., waiting time) and provide a complete and systematic solution for optimizing microtransit systems. Finally, a webpage interface will be designed to take the system design inputs and display simulation and optimization results through a graphical user interface (GUI) on a website. The toolkit can be easily applied by transit agencies interested in testing different operation scenarios for their microtransit systems. 

The benefits of deploying on-demand microtransit are expected to be significant in the light of socio-economy and mobility while enhancing transportation equity, mobility convenience, job access, and reducing traffic congestion, energy consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 08 Jul 2025 17:11:39 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/2572333</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Assessment of paratransit system performance in mixed traffic using a two-stage bootstrap-DEA and ordinary Least Square approach</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/2548155</link>
      <description><![CDATA[There has been a surge in the use of paratransit services including minibuses, two and three-wheelers, and other variants in Sub-Saharan African cities. Despite being characterized as unsafe; they continue to address a greater percentage of urban travel demand. Amidst the ongoing debate to integrate formalized public transport (FPT) and paratransit services, there is a need to understand the current performance of the existing modes operating in mixed traffic. The present study attempts to evaluate the performance measures of paratransit services in Freetown, Republic of Sierra Leone using a two-stage approach. In the first stage, efficiency and effectiveness scores for paratransit services along two corridors were estimated and corrected for bias by bootstrapping using data envelopment analysis (DEA). In the second stage, the bias-corrected DEA efficiency scores were regressed against a set of service and operational indicators. Data collection included videography, onboard vehicle, user perception, and operator surveys. A total of 1119 drivers and 1010 passengers were intercepted, and 300 onboard trips were made. Data were analyzed in STATA and R package (deaR) software programs. Findings revealed that as compared to low-capacity modes, relatively high-capacity modes are more efficient and effective in terms of revenue-generating vehicle kilometers travelled and daily ridership. Efficiency was found to be positively influenced by passenger density, speed density, and vehicle capacity. Stop density, capacity utilization ratio, in-vehicle travel time, trip delay and fuel consumption had a significant negative impact on paratransit services. These findings provide an opportunity to develop more precise planning strategies aimed at improving paratransit service performance especially for cities moving toward public transport system integration.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 26 Jun 2025 11:42:15 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/2548155</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Joint Design of Fixed-Route and Paratransit Services with Autonomous Pods</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/2563759</link>
      <description><![CDATA[This study envisions a jointly designed transit system comprised of a fixed-route (FR) service and a paratransit (PT) service. The integration of the two services is inspired by the potential application of modular autonomous vehicles, or pods, in transit. Constrained by a fixed budget, the operator of the joint system  aims to minimize the total user cost by optimally allocating pods between the two services. To formulate the operator’s design problem, the authors propose a stylized model, in which the FR service features a simple 2D grid route structure overlaying on a square city, and the PT service is designed as a general on-demand system that can be configured in different modes of operations. A case study is conducted using transit data from the Chicago region. The authors find that joint design helps prevent resource misallocation that could render a service dysfunctional under insufficient budgets, although its potential to reduce total user cost is limited. Enforcing the equal-access constraint—requiring that PT users incur no greater cost than FR users—tends to help PT users at the expense of FR users, though the overall impact on total user cost is insignificant. Modularity enables the formation of pod trains using small pods, which benefits FR operations, particularly when the design is not tightly constrained by budget. In contrast, automation delivers greater service improvements for PT users, whose more labor-intensive cost structure makes them more sensitive to efficiency gains, especially under tight budgets. Among the PT service modes, ridesharing is the most flexible, allowing for a wide range of service levels based on the available budget.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 20 Jun 2025 17:03:01 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/2563759</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Impact of Modularized Autonomous Vehicles on Transit System Design and Operations</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/2559152</link>
      <description><![CDATA[This study envisions a jointly designed transit system comprised of a fixed-route (FR) service and a paratransit (PT) service. The integration of the two services is inspired by the potential application of modular autonomous vehicles, or pods, in transit. Constrained by a fixed budget, the operator of the joint system aims to minimize the total user cost by optimally allocating pods between the two services. To formulate the operator's design problem, the authors propose a stylized model, in which the FR service features a simple 2D grid route structure overlaying on a square city, and the PT service is designed as a general on-demand system that can be configured in different modes of operations. A case study is conducted using transit data from the Chicago region. The authors find that joint design helps prevent resource misallocation that could render a service dysfunctional under insufficient budgets, although its potential to reduce total user cost is limited. Enforcing the equal-access constraint—requiring that PT users incur no greater cost than FR users—tends to help PT users at the expense of FR users, though the overall impact on total user cost is insignificant. Modularity enables the formation of pod trains using small pods, which benefits FR operations, particularly when the design is not tightly constrained by budget. In contrast, automation delivers greater service improvements for PT users, whose more labor-intensive cost structure makes them more sensitive to efficiency gains, especially under tight budgets. Among the PT service modes, ridesharing is the most flexible, allowing for a wide range of service levels based on the available budget.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 12 Jun 2025 13:25:25 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/2559152</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Application of Multi-Class Machine Learning Algorithms To Predicting Commuter Preference &amp; System Benefits of an Integrated Public Transport: the case of a proposed dedicated bus lane system</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/2525475</link>
      <description><![CDATA[In contrast to most industrialized countries, the majority of Sub-Saharan African cities continue to struggle with the growing demand for public transport (PT). Freetown, Republic of Sierra Leone, was exploring proposals to implement the first dedicated bus lane PT system (DBLPT) with high-quality buses on selected corridors. This study attempts to explore user preference for the planned DBLPT system and its benefits in terms of revenue and passenger ridership. The system was analyzed using four hypothetical PT scenarios of system replacement and integration: Bus Only, Bus_Minibus, Bus_Three-wheeler, and Bus_Private car. Onboard vehicle traffic and revealed preference data were collected for designing the stated preference survey that was distributed to 1,500 respondents (4,500 observations). Travel time, waiting time, transport fare, and other trip and sociodemographic attributes varied across the PT scenarios. Fourteen multi-class machine learning classifiers (MCMLC) were trained to analyze each scenario. Further, the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Sankey Diagrams were used to rank and visualize the most significant attributes. The findings revealed that all classifiers are consistent in terms of prediction accuracy. Bus_Minibus system was predicted as the most preferred DBLPT system, followed by Bus_Three-wheeler. Commuters who preferred the Bus_Minibus DBLPT system placed a high value on transport fare, while Bus_Three-wheeler commuters prioritized both in and out-of-vehicle travel time. Additionally, the Bus_Minibus system was predicted to generate the highest daily revenue and passenger ridership, followed by the Bus_Three-wheeler system. These findings and other model results underscore the preference for and benefits of an integrated DBLPT system.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 24 Apr 2025 09:07:42 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/2525475</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Legal Considerations for Transit Planning and Managing Large-Scale Events</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/2487296</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Large events can significantly impact cities for days or even weeks, requiring careful planning by transit providers. Key metrics such as service reliability, headways, and staffing levels must be evaluated. Additionally, considerations must include the integration of paratransit, ride-sharing, charter services, and microtransit to meet diverse transportation needs. Addressing the risk of human trafficking is also a critical priority in event planning.
Over the next decade, major global events like the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the 2028 Summer Olympic Games, two Rugby World Cups, and new Formula One races will place considerable demands on urban transit systems. Effective transit strategies will be essential for moving millions of spectators and athletes efficiently while minimizing disruptions to local communities.
OBJECTIVE: The objective of this research is to examine and summarize the legal frameworks that influence decision-making for transit systems supporting large-scale sports events. This includes addressing human trafficking prevention and ensuring the efficient use of paratransit, ride-sharing, charter services, and microtransit. Specifically, the research will analyze the legal implications of implementing multimodal transportation solutions to meet the demands of these events effectively.
]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 08 Jan 2025 15:54:20 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/2487296</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Studying transfers in informal transport networks using volunteered GPS data</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/2453046</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Multimodal integration is an important issue in public transport systems due to its influence on both passenger experience and overall network efficiency. In most countries in the global South, achieving integration is particularly problematic because of the informal nature of most public transport. Decentralised service planning and demand responsiveness lead to often uncoordinated, highly variable service patterns, which are not optimised from a passenger perspective. Efforts to promote integration are also hampered by a lack of planning data on routes, service frequencies, and transfer locations. This research asks whether GPS data supplied by passengers as they move through the network can be used to help form a better understanding of the extent and quality of the transfer experience. The data was collected in the City of Tshwane, South Africa, among informal minibus-taxi passengers. Post-processing involved the use of a machine learning algorithm to identify in-vehicle, wait and walk segments, which were used to identify transfers between one vehicle and another. The results showed that many transfers are spatially efficient with short walk and wait times, but that a minority of transferring passengers may experience very long transfers. Transfers encompass a diverse range of behaviours including pacing, shopping and browsing, and typically involve much more walking than waiting. Transfers also occur across a wide range of locations, but tend to be concentrated in certain nodes and along street segments. Strategies to improve transfer facilities as well as general walkability might be targeted at such locations. The study demonstrated that volunteered GPS data is a promising source of information to help planners understand the transfer experience in multimodal networks in data-poor environments.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 13 Dec 2024 17:01:42 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/2453046</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>A tactical planning framework to integrate paratransit with formal public transport systems</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/2438238</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Despite the crucial role of informal paratransit services in mobility systems, their planning and integration with formal public transport systems have received limited attention. The authors present a novel framework to integrate public transport and paratransit at the tactical planning level. The authors formulate this integration as a two-step Transit Network Frequency Setting Problem (TNFSP). The first step of TNFSP involves a headway-based network-wide multi-modal transit assignment, followed by an integrated frequency optimisation in the second step. The proposed approach is applied to the network of Visakhapatnam, a medium-sized Indian city with 9 % and 18 % share of paratransit and formal transit. After validating the base model using real-world data, the authors perform scenario-based analysis to derive the optimal fleet size, network configuration, and frequency of both systems to minimise externalities. Integrated planning and frequency optimization can lead to 50–60 % reduction in travel time and emissions compared to current approach of separately planned systems.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 14 Oct 2024 09:03:35 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/2438238</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Mobility Data – Standards and Specifications for Interoperability</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/2425169</link>
      <description><![CDATA[The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has partnered with the Center for Urban Transportation Research (CUTR) to conduct research on transit mobility, infrastructure, and safety. This involves identifying existing standards and practices to improve these areas, as well as conducting gap analyses to determine the need for additional guidance and resources to support safe and efficient public transportation. This research aims to enhance the ongoing efforts of the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) by focusing on data exchange and interoperability between modes, platform vendors, and operators in the Mobility on Demand (MOD) ecosystem. This report offers a comprehensive global literature search on the interoperability of mobility services, including taxonomies, definitions, and the current state of mobility services. It also summarizes key research outcomes, presents case studies and standards, and discusses the outlook on technological advances in interoperability within mobility. The report includes findings from a survey administered to gather feedback from the mobility industry on the current state of standardization and available resources that support open data practices and integration of trip discovery, payment, and operations. Additionally, it provides an overview of the Mobility Standards and Guidelines Resource (MSGR) online tool, which was developed by the CUTR research team to inform stakeholders on the mode-specific resources available for the integration of various components of the mobility ecosystem. The report concludes by discussing key findings and outlining considerations for the FTA to support an interoperable, open, and user-centric MOD system.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 11 Sep 2024 09:17:37 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/2425169</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Pathways to integrating paratransit and informal public transport: Case studies from Tshwane, South Africa</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/2250855</link>
      <description><![CDATA[At its core public transport integration is about the collaboration of actors. Collaboration is elusive and difficult to achieve, especially in developing countries where insufficient regulation and dispersed, quasi-formal public transport operations are common. Asymmetries in information and objectives between paratransit and formal sector actors create barriers and may prevent synergies from emerging. A simplified framework for assessing the collaboration of actors during the implementation of integrated public transport projects is proposed. The position of the framework is that it is critical to identify actors’ objectives and barriers to collaboration, and then to action decisions to remove these barriers and achieve objectives at every step of the STO (Strategic Tactical Operational) decision-making process to maintain structural and horizontal consistency. The framework is tested ex-post on two public transport integration projects in Tshwane, South Africa: the Gautrain regional rapid rail and A Re Yeng Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), both of which are supported by paratransit feeders. The case study shows how collaboration is achieved when all the key actors' objectives and barriers are understood, planned for and implemented across the STO levels and how failure to do so can lead to failed integration outcomes. The framework may be useful to authorities pursuing collaboration with paratransit for the purposes of implementing integrated public transport in the Global South.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 12 Jan 2024 16:45:59 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/2250855</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Paratransit service quality modeling reflecting users' perception-A case study in Dhaka, Bangladesh</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/2221595</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Increasing usage of private cars and low service quality of public transport is an acute problem in many developing cities. The prerequisite is to meet the mobility needs, especially for low-income people, to ensure adequate capacity by the service provided. Paratransit is an indispensable mode of public transport, especially where the mass transit system is insufficient. Rapid increase in urban population, per capita income along existing transport infrastructure has stimulated their usage as a cheap and convenient public transport mode. Quality of service is considered as one of the most significant means to assess transit performance. To observe the performance of public transportation in roadway systems, overall passenger perceived service quality (SQ) has always been the most significant means of measurement. This research aims to establish a relationship between SQ variables describing the service of paratransit by Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) based on users' perceptions. An interview survey was conducted off-board to 2025 paratransit users at twenty paratransit routes in Dhaka metropolitan area (Bangladesh). Results show that the attribute of integration with supporting modes has the highest loading, inferring it as the most significant aspect of SQ. Attributes loading value may be explained according to the importance perceived by the users. Several SE models were developed using 21 service variables from 2000 questionnaires. Upon developing different models, the best model with three latent constructs was identified as the main characteristics for explaining the entire set of physical and service performance elements of the paratransit service. Three latent constructs were ‘Quality of transport’, ‘Transit performance’ and ‘Service quality’. Among 21 SQ variables, ‘Security of passenger’, ‘seat comfort level’, and ‘riding safety’ have been found to impart the greatest influence on the overall perceived SQ. The study findings support the data collected from paratransit users. This study may help the paratransit operators to determine variables that are decisive for SQ and their relation with the overall perceived SQ by the users. Understanding SQ variables, influencing passenger perception makes it easier to design and deliver good quality service.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 28 Aug 2023 09:34:02 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/2221595</guid>
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