USER VIEWS ON LEVELS OF SERVICE

The subject of public transport has become increasingly important because of the cost of fuel and increasing congestion in the cities. The attraction of the private car is so great that severe difficulties have prevented the solution of the urban transport problems through the use of other modes, in particular the bus, hence the interest in developing techniques for an appropriate planning, design and operation of bus systems. The work described in this paper explores the possibilities of applying the user opinion of the quality of service provided on a particular route, as the basis for designing standards to regulate it. The underlying interest in using the approach based on the user reported opinion was to ascertain the "explicit acceptability" of the service by the user, instead of the acceptability implicit in demand elasticity approaches. The former approach should be useful in situations where the user, at least in the short term, appears to be captive of public transport. A survey was therefore made in order to contrast the user opinion of the overall quality of service versus the measured values of several trip attributes. The results of the survey showed, with a high level of significance and a moderate linear correlation, that changes in the user opinion may be explained by changes in trip attributes. Moreover, the results confirmed what has been observed in empirical studies, namely that waiting time is the dominant explicative variable among trip attributes. The approach used in the study proved to be useful in developing operational standards for bus routes and to assess the level of service provided on different routes. (Author/TRRL)

• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/isbn/0860501116
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Public Transport. Proceedings of Seminar M held at the PTRC 10th Summer Annual Meeting, University of Warwick, England.
• Corporate Authors:

  PTRC Education and Research Services Limited

  110 Strand
  London WC2,   England 
• Authors:
  • Wormald, E M
  • Osuna, E E
• Conference:
  • Planning & Transport Res & Comp, Sum Ann Mtg, Proc
• Publication Date: 1982

Media Info

• Features: Figures; References;
• Pagination: p. 15-25

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Acceptance; Attitudes; Bus transit; Buses; Comfort; Conferences; Costs; Level of service; Marketing; Operations; Pedestrian traffic; Planning; Public transit; Safety; Scheduling; Standards; Surveys; Tariffs; Transportation operations; Travel time; Trip length; Vehicle occupants; Waiting time; Walking
• Uncontrolled Terms: Acceptability
• Old TRIS Terms: Bus services; Operations planning
• ITRD Terms: 2267: Attitude (psychol); 9138: Comfort; 8525: Conference; 224: Cost; 697: Journey time; 653: Level of service; 1144: Operations (transp network); 744: Public transport; 1665: Safety; 187: Specification (standard); 241: Tariff; 1715: Vehicle occupant; 9100: Waiting time; 758: Walking
• Subject Areas: Administration and Management; Finance; Highways; Passenger Transportation; Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; Safety and Human Factors; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00381673
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Transport Research Laboratory
• ISBN: 0-86050-111-6
• Files: ITRD, TRIS
• Created Date: Mar 30 1984 12:00AM