AN EVALUATION OF PROMOTIONAL TACTICS AND UTILITY MEASUREMENT METHODS FOR PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The first part of the report focuses on the promotion of public transportation. It includes a survey of relevant communications and marketing literature, the research hypotheses that were deemed relevant, the methodology used to test alternative promotional tactics, and results of interpretation of the findings for promotion for public transportation. The second part focuses on recent advances in methods for quantifying preference levels for various products and service features of transportation modes. Similarly, it reviews the relevant literature, presents the methodology whereby alternative measurement methods may be applied to evaluate the attributes of transportation systems in the study area, and reports the findings concerning the usefulness of the methods tried as well as recommendations for transit planning and future research in the problem area. From these results, several suggestions for future research appear to be germane. First, longitudinal studies of the effects of multi-exposure promotional campaigns on attitudes and behavioral intentions toward public transportation need to be underspoken. Second, incremental changes in the attributes having the greatest potential for altering utilities should be implemented and monitored. Third, analytical models for evaluating the political and economic viability of alternative attribute combinations for transportation systems need to be developed. Fourth, further developments should be undertaken to develop a more parsimonious instrumentation for eliciting trade-off data for potential users of transportation services. Finally, work should be undertaken to reduce the computational costs of analyzing trade-off data. The results of the study indicate that unless there are substantial improvements in the product (public transportation) promotion will not be effective in obtaining attitudinal and behavioral changes. The trade-off analyses developed in this study provide indications of the areas where policy may be most effective in increasing the utility of public transportation services. These findings provide, at least, a first handle on some of the policy levers that may be available to decision makers confronted with choosing alternative strategies for the provision of public transportation in their communities.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • Sponsored by the Department of Transportation, Office of University Research.
• Corporate Authors:

  University of Texas, Austin

  Council for Advanced Transportation Studies
  Austin, TX  United States  78712
• Authors:
  • ALPERT, M
  • Golden, L
  • Betak, J
  • STORY, J
  • Davies, C S
• Publication Date: 1977-3

Media Info

• Pagination: 3 p.

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Advertising; Attitudes; Data collection; Marketing; Mode choice; Policy; Public transit; Surveys; Transportation planning
• Old TRIS Terms: Modal selection; User characteristics
• Subject Areas: Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Policy; Public Transportation;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00172364
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: National Technical Information Service
• Report/Paper Numbers: Research Report 39
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Apr 26 1981 12:00AM