Improving public transport ridership through a better understanding of transport accessibility, transit service quality and users' perceptions

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Improving transit ridership is a fundamental goal for transport authorities and policymakers. In fact, an attractive transit system is essential for sustainability, equity, and the livability of any city. A growing transit market share increases transit agencies' revenues and, thereby, the quality of service provided to the public. This has been seen as a win-win situation for both users and agencies. Nevertheless, recent statistics have shown levelling-off and declining trends in ridership in many Canadian and US cities.*** Traditionally, modelling the factors affecting transit ridership has been mainly focused on analyzing transit level of service factors in addition to socioeconomic and land use factors. Emerging new technologies and transport alternatives, however, show an impact on travellers' preferences, attitudes and perceptions. Therefore, it is now more important than ever to provide a comprehensive and clear understanding of the determinants of ridership. To meet this goal, the proposed research program includes four major interconnected projects that provide novel approaches to establishing functional relationships between transit ridership and several influential factors. The first project estimates the relationship between users' level of satisfaction, preferences towards the new transport technologies, social stigmas, service reliability, and the use of public transit across different cities in Canada. The second project involves measuring the impact of different transit service improvement strategies on transit system performance and the satisfaction of different groups of users in Saskatoon. The third project assesses the effects of transit service disruptions on users' travel behaviours and transit route choices in the long and short term. The fourth project focuses on modelling local and regional accessibility with car, transit, and active transport modes to various opportunities while understanding their association with transit ridership. *** The proposed research program offers a long-term contribution to the transportation field in all its aspects. It articulates innovative approaches for collecting and fusing various forms of data while generating more adequate methodologies to quantify the impact of transport investments from different perspectives at different scales. It also provides an empirical understanding of several issues that are of great significance in helping predict demand and growing the transit market share, benefiting transit agencies, engineers, and planners in Canada, and beyond. More importantly, it will assist in training a new generation of transportation professionals and decision-makers, who will incorporate and integrate people's perceptions and behaviours into the transit planning process and, thereby, develop policies that are more effective. The short-term impacts involve providing off-the-shelf tools and studies for the local authorities, helping them better direct their investments.