Waiting is Becoming Fun! The Influence of Advertising and Infotainment on the Waiting Experience

At train stations, passengers are regularly confronted with waiting times, which is no fun but often inevitable. Depending on the circumstances, waiting for a service can evoke a wide range of negative reactions, such as boredom, irritation, anxiety and stress. These negative emotions influence the customer satisfaction and the evaluation of the service quality. In order to shorten the objective waiting time and prevent delays as much as possible, Dutch Railways has been making some considerable investments in new trains and in optimizing the schedule. The question remains what else Dutch Railways can do to positively influence the perceived waiting time. The answer to this question may lie in the correct attention to the role of the service environment when processing information during the wait. The successful deployment of specific environmental elements (such as advertising and infotainment) can work as a distractor influence the subjective estimation of time. How these processes exactly work, and how Dutch Railways can successfully deploy station advertising and infotainment to positively influence the waiting experience is the focus of this paper. The authors conducted two experiments in a virtual station environment. Study 1 explored whether and how advertising in a station environment influences the experience of both the station and the wait. This was done with a 4 (tempo advertising: no advertising vs static vs slow vs fast) x 2 (activity: peak vs off-peak) x 2 (passenger’s travel objective: must vs lust) between-subjects design. Study 2 investigated whether and how infotainment in a station environment influences the experience of both the station and the wait. This was done with a 4 (type of programming: no program vs informative vs current affairs/entertainment vs Railway) x 2 (activity: peak vs off-peak) x 2 (passenger’s travel objective: must vs lust) between-subjects design. The findings of the studies reveal that the presence of platform wall advertising or screens with infotainment do not influence the perceived waiting time or the subjective time factor but that they do positively contribute to the waiting experience. Adding advertising and infotainment make the wait more pleasant. Passengers indicated being more satisfied during the wait, that they experienced the waiting time as being more useful and that they would have no problem returning to a platform with advertising and infotainment.

• Record URL:
  https://aetransport.org/past-etc-papers/conference-papers-pre-2009/conference-papers-2009
• Corporate Authors:

  Association for European Transport (AET)

  1 Vernon Mews, Vernon Street, West Kensington
  London W14 0RL,    
• Authors:
  • van Hagen, Mark
  • Pruyn, Ad
  • Galetzka, Mirjam
  • Kramer, Judith
• Conference:
  • European Transport Conference, 2009
  • Location: Leiden Leeuwenhorst Conference Centre , Netherlands
  • Date: 2009-10-5 to 2009-10-7
• Publication Date: 2009

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: Figures; References;
• Pagination: 24p
• Monograph Title: European Transport Conference, 2009 Proceedings

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Advertising; Customer satisfaction; Quality of service; Rail transit stations; Subway stations; Transportation planning; Waiting time
• Uncontrolled Terms: Infotainment
• Geographic Terms: Netherlands
• Subject Areas: Planning and Forecasting; Railroads; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01349517
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Aug 2 2011 11:05AM