Hello everyone,
I am looking for a way to measure the quality of public transportation and would love to hear you thoughts about the satisfaction with travel scale [STS] or any other common measurement.
Is there a standard scale that is widely used in a way that enables to run an international comparison (e.g. an indicator that is used by the OECD)?
Thanks!
I am highly interested with your question as the problem needs further investigation and empirically as well as contextually tested evidences.
However, some of the search results show the following sound suggestions.
- in terms of passenger satisfaction (Time accessibility, psychological aspects of the passenger)
Source: IVANA OLIVKOVẴ DOI: 10.1515/ttj-2016-0003
- by analyzing quality attributes of regional public transport and their influence on modal choice, demand, and customer satisfaction through a literature review.
Source: Hansson, J., Pettersson, F., Svensson, H. et al. Preferences in regional public transport: a literature review. Eur. Transp. Res. Rev. 11, 38 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12544-019-0374-4
- By using a composite Urban Public Transport Quality Indicator [1] for the analysis of urban public transport system (UPTS) quality.
Source: IRINA PTICINA Proceedings of the 11th International Conference “Reliability and Statistics in Transportation and Communication” (RelStat’11), 19–22 October 2011, Riga, Latvia, p. 155-164. ISBN 978-9984-818-46-7 Transport and Telecommunication Institute, Lomonosova 1, LV-1019, Riga, Latvia
- Establishing an assessment index system for the development level of urban public transport consisting of a target layer, a criterion layer, and an index layer.
Source: Linghong Zou, Hongna Dai, Enjian Yao, Tian Jiang, Hongwei Guo: Research on Assessment Methods for Urban Public Transport Development in China Comput Intell Neurosci. 2014; 2014: 941347. Published online 2014 Nov 4. doi: 10.1155/2014/941347PMCID: PMC4235122
"Quality" is a multidimensionnal concept... You could start with some readings, such as https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/9780081020807/public-transportation-quality-of-service
1. primary function - door2door time: walking distance to/from a stop/station, parking-ride option, average technical speed including stops, number of connections, waiting times, working hours...
2. comfort: ability to seat, crush load (
See this OECD book for more details: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/transport/valuing-convenience-in-public-transport_9789282107683-en
While it is UK specific the government guidance WebTAG is quite good on modelling transport. Take a look at what logit mode choice models include as these are the influencing factors on choosing PT vs car. If you look at some economic theories cities should reach an equilibrium where both PT and car networks have the same costs. Any measure of a PT performance should include a comparative element to see how competitive it is against a car.
Dear Eyal
We normally distinguish between the physical elements of quality (such as frequency and journey time), which are explicitly combined into the concept of 'generalised cost' (which needs to be minimised), and real quality elements (such as decor or seat comfort), for which Stated Preference or other survey methods can be used to calculate a monetary equivalent valuation. Transport quality of the former would imply a generalised cost of zero, and of the latter would lead to a service in which no-one was prepared to pay for any improvements.
Hope that helps
Nigel
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