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

改善过境乘客量是运输当局和决策者的一个基本目标。事实上，一个有吸引力的交通系统对于任何城市的可持续性、公平性和宜居性都至关重要。过境市场份额的增加增加了过境机构的收入，从而提高了向公众提供服务的质量。这被视为用户和机构的双赢局面。然而，最近的统计数据显示，加拿大和美国许多城市的乘客量呈平稳和下降趋势。传统上，对影响公交客流量的因素进行建模主要集中在分析公交服务水平因素以及社会经济和土地利用因素。然而，新兴的新技术和交通替代办法对旅行者的偏好、态度和看法产生了影响。因此，现在比以往任何时候都更重要的是提供一个全面和清晰的了解乘客量的决定因素。为了实现这一目标，拟议的研究计划包括四个主要的相互关联的项目，提供新的方法来建立过境乘客量和几个影响因素之间的函数关系。第一个项目估计用户的满意度之间的关系，对新的交通技术，社会耻辱，服务的可靠性，并在加拿大不同城市的公共交通的使用偏好。第二个项目涉及衡量不同的公交服务改进战略对公交系统绩效和萨斯卡通不同用户群体满意度的影响。第三个项目评估过境服务中断对用户旅行行为和过境路线选择的长期和短期影响。第四个项目的重点是模拟当地和区域的可达性与汽车，过境和主动运输模式的各种机会，同时了解他们与过境乘客的关联。* 拟议的研究计划提供了一个长期的贡献，交通领域的各个方面。它阐述了收集和融合各种形式数据的创新方法，同时产生更适当的方法，从不同角度和不同规模量化运输投资的影响。它还提供了对几个问题的实证理解，这些问题在帮助预测需求和增加过境市场份额方面具有重要意义，使加拿大及其他地区的过境机构，工程师和规划者受益。更重要的是，它将协助培训新一代的运输专业人员和决策者，他们将把人们的看法和行为纳入过境规划进程，从而制定更有效的政策。短期影响包括为地方当局提供现成的工具和研究，帮助他们更好地指导投资。

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.