Deliverable 2.3Identification of user requirements concerning the definition of

variables to be measured by the METPEX toolPublishable summary

Coordinator:

Professor Andree Woodcock, Coventry University

Tel.: +44 (0) 2476 158349 Email: A.woodcock@coventry.ac.uk

Author:

Dr, Yusak O. Susilo, KTH Royal Institute of Technology

tel.: +46(0)87909635, Email: yusak.susilo@abe.kth.se

Duration of Research:Project Duration Nov 2012 – October 2015

Deliverable Duration : Feb 2013 – Aug 2013

WEBSITE

WWW.METPEX.EU

Grant Agreement no: 314354 Project Full Title ‘A Measurement Tool to determine the quality of the Passenger Experience’

Table of contents

1. Introduction

2. Desk study findings on travel needs of different groups of

travellers

3. Experiment and survey design

4. Passenger survey and stakeholders interview results

5. Conclusions

Aims of the deliverable

• To identify the variables which can be used to measure the whole journey passenger experience that will impact on increased acceptance and take-up of new terrestrial transport solutions and technologies, and a more inclusive terrestrial transport system with better access for all.

• To involve cities/agencies/operators in the process by getting early feedback on the adequacy of the tools and how the information provided will inform sustainable transport policies.

• To define the variables that will be measured by the METPEX Tool.

Who travelled in METPEX cities?

Within the cities involved in METPEX: • A relatively balanced proportion of men and women, • A higher proportion of younger individuals, than national average,

in Vilnius, Dublin and Coventry, • Coventry also has a higher proportion of minority groups, • Stockholm also has a higher proportion of cyclist than other

observed cities, • Students and pupils are a significant part of the population, • Coventry and Valencia have a significant proportion of

unemployed travellers, • Valencia and Rome have a significant proportion of

tourists/unfamiliar travellers.

Needs for different groups of travellers

Groups Special Characteristics Main Important Factors

Full-time employed workers Regularly incur more temporal constraints than monetary expenditures Punctuality, reliability, cost

Female travellers

Travel shy, reassurance seeker and cautious planner. Has a complex scheduling of activities in both time and space and is likely to bring luggage

Safe, reliable, affordable and comprehensive access

Parents with small children Likely to be a female than a male, travelling with buggies and luggages

Accessible vehicle and station, on-board space and supportive attitudes

Low income travellersTend to be captive with the cheapest mode alternative and spent a significant proportion of his/her income for travel

Availability, adequacy, cost and safety

Children and young travellers

Smaller children highly dependent on their parents' decisions and preferences. For many young teens, travel represents a gateway to adulthood, enabling independence, socialisation and a recognition of maturity.

Practicalities (such as cost and speed of journey), flexibility and safety

Needs for different groups of travellers

Groups Special Characteristics Main Important Factors

Elderly travellers

Tend to have more limited ability and strength to move. The feeling of able to travel independently is closely linked with his/her sense of self-worth. They have increased difficulty in identifying signs, in reading timetables, listening to loudspeakers and to execute responses.

Physical and emotional barriers, affordability, flexibility, reliability and support facilities

Disabled travellers

Has physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on his/her ability to travel. Lack confidence when travelling, experience a lack of flexibility in their travel choices and difficult to be spontaneous.

Physical accessibility and availability, support facilities (including information availabilities), cost, certainty and security and supportive attitudes

Tourists and unfamiliar travellersSuffer lost-in-translation problem. Have a high mobility needs, but limited spatial and language knowledge

A simpler system, more information provisions and more helpful and tolerant staff

The needs of experiment

• There is a lack of knowledge on what is really valued by different groups of travellers who used different travel modes.

• There is a lack of studies that well integrated instrumental and non-instrumental variables and covered the whole (door-to-door) travellers journey.

• On the other hand, it is impossible to incorporate all variables and factors of concern in measuring the existing level of service.

• A mix of qualitative and quantitative experiment, that involves primary data collections and empirical data analysis, carried out. The variables that matters will be tested statistically, for different socio-demographic groups and travel modes.

Experiment and survey description

• Experiment: questionnaire, consisted of five sections: • Individual attributes (socio-demographic, mobility behaviour)• Attitudes (travel preferences, mobility-related opinions)• Contextual variables (temporal, weather conditions, trip purpose,

subjective well-being indices)• Underlying travel aspects (familiarity, adaptation, past experience)• Travel experience factors (availability, travel time components,

information provision, reliability, way-finding, comfort, appeal, safety and security, customer care, price, connectivity, ride quality, environmental impact and travel time productivity as applicable)

• The experiment were carried out at eight METPEX cities: Bucharest, Coventry, Dublin, Rome, Stockholm, Turin, Valencia and Vilnius.

Experiment and survey description

• To complement the designed questionnaire, a series of interviews with relevant stakeholders were held to discuss which variables are important from their perspectives and also to identify the variables that may be missed / unique from city to city throughout Europe.

• The stakeholder interviews survey involved ten cities: Bucharest, Dublin, Grevena, Rome, Stockholm, Turin, Valencia, Coventry, Vilnius and Zurich, along with one European body: the European Disability Forum (see http://www.edf-feph.org/)

Passenger survey results

• 554 participants, Men (56%); Women (44%)• Elderly and disabled travellers are underrepresented• Majority has access to car (64%), PT card (62%) and bike

(61%) • PT travel frequency: daily (55%); 2-3 time a week (16%);

seldom or never (13%)• 66% of all trips were multimodal, 2.44 trip stages on

average

Passenger survey results

• Average satisfaction (1-5 scale)

PT Car

Bike Walk

Waiting and transfer conditions more prominent than vehicle-related aspects

Satisfaction with walking was weakly correlated with aspects included in the questionnaire

The primary trip stage is very strongly correlated with entire trip satisfaction. The impacts of access and egress trip stages is marginal, but each of them is strongly correlated with the satisfaction from the primary trip stage.

Travellers that feel more passive are more likely to be satisfied with the service, giving everything else is the same.

Current satisfaction is very strongly correlated with the elements of past experience. It is even strongly correlated with the assertion that the chosen mode is the best mean of connection based on traveller’s experience.

Salient findings from regression analyses

• Past experience and travellers’ expectations are key determinants of passenger experience

• Individual traveller and trip characteristics do not seem to contribute significantly to explaining travel experience in most cases – with age and income being noticeable exceptions.

• Certain travellers groups such as women, young and low income or unemployed travellers have distinctive determinants of satisfaction with trip stages for various travel modes.

• The complexity of trip stages exercises large variations.

Salient findings from regression analyses

• Satisfaction could be explained sufficiently well by few variables. Satisfaction with public transport is however significantly more complicated than the factors determining satisfaction on other transport modes. The variables included in this pilot study were not able to explain variations in satisfaction with walking trip stages.

• Travellers’ emotional state is an important determinant of travel experience and satisfaction

• Travellers’ attitudes and opinions concerning travel safety and particular travel modes were explanatory variables of travel satisfaction.

Stakeholders Interviews

Cities Operators AuthoritiesNon-

governmental’s special interest

groups

Others (including universities and national

research institutes)Total

Bucharest 2 1 1 4Coventry 6 3 2 11Dublin 1 1 1 3Grevena 1 1Rome 1 1Stockholm 2 1 2 2 7Turin 3 3 2 8Valencia 2 1 3Vilnius 1 2 1 4Zurich 1 1 2EDF (Brussels) 1 1Total 17 12 9 7 45

Different questions were valued differently by different classes of stakeholders.

Operators were mostly interested and concerned about the impacts of detailed level-of-service related variables on passenger experience, whilst the planning authorities were more interested with wider general urban and public transport planning issues and the multi-modal travel patterns.

The special interest groups were understandably more interested with their detailed constituent’s interests, where as the government’s research institutes were interested with more detailed trip patterns and behavioural variables that underlie the travellers’ decision making processes.

Variables valued most by stakeholders

Operator Authorities Special Needs Groups Other

Subjective Well-Being Subjective Well-Being

Attitudes and opinions towards mode-specific preferences, social norm, transfer preference, traffic congestions and pollutions and safe and secure feelings whilst travelling

The main purpose of the trip Trip arrival constraint The use of pre-trip information Carrying heavy or bulk item whilst travelling Familiarity with the trip

Satisfaction level towards to the current choice

The occurrence of disruption events and its impacts

Detailed trip stages, including waiting and on-vehicle time and speed, travel time, punctuality

Detailed time reliability perception

Detailed trip stages, including waiting and on-vehicle time and speed, travel time, punctuality

Information acquisition Information acquisition

Time utilisation on-board and at stops Time utilisation on-board and at

stops

Overall satisfaction in general and compared to the his/her expectation and towards other mode alternatives and possible modify the choice

Passenger satisfaction on: service availability (frequency and stop location), travel speed (both subjective and relative speeds), information at stations and on-board, information about ticketing, comfort (quality on on-board, fellow travellers, seat availability, seat comfort, easiness to buy ticket, crowding both at stops and on-board, station facilities), appeal (physical environment, vehicle quality, cleanliness both at stations and on-board), safety (at stops and on-board), overall reliability (including regularity and punctuality), personnel availability at stops and on-board, price (value-for-money and fairness), connectivity (network-wise and easy transfer), travel sickness, and environment issue.

Parking price and easiness to find parking spot

Travel experiences among car travellers, which include the reliability, travel time, speed and information provision, parking provisions and fees.

Travel experiences among cyclists, which include the feeling of safe and being prioritised on the road, availability of the relevant information, route connectivity and the availability of bicycle parks at the destinations

Travel experiences among pedestrians, which include the quality and design of the pedestrian paths, feeling secure and safe while walking and the availability of relevant information

Open Suggestions to improve travel experience

Gender, Age, Disability information, household composition, income and education information

Special group needs, include way-finding, accessibility, stress, travel information and lighting availabilities.

Access to public transport card

Conclusions: The key variables that suggested to be measured by the METPEX Tool

Variable Definition CommentsPrimary variables

Travel time Actual time components including access, waiting, in-vehicle/moving and egress times (as applicable).

Could be measured directly from traveller’s position data

Subjective travel time

Perceived time components Direct questioning could be contrasted against measured travel time

Station environment

The appeal and safety of the physical waiting environment

Relevant for public transportSafety and security are particularly relevant for women travellers

Personnel Availability and responsiveness of personnel at stops and on-board

Relevant for public transportSubjective satisfaction levels

Ease of transferring Quality of interchange (coordination, transfer design, accessibility, connectivity)

A complex notion that requires a more detailed investigation of interchange quality factors

Physical design The presence of physical hindrances, appropriate and thoughtful design and the surface quality.

Relevant for active modesRequires an inventory for classifying design quality

Conclusions: The key variables that suggested to be measured by the METPEX Tool

Variable Definition CommentsSecondary variables

Information The availability and quality of pre-trip and en-route information

Relevant for all modes except walking. Requires a careful classification of information sources (type, trip stage, comprehensiveness)

Availability Service frequency and span, service coverage

Could be derived from the respective public transport agencies and GIS analysis

Reliability Service punctuality/regularity and travel time predictability

Relevant for public transport and carCould be derived empirically from data on travel time distribution

Comfort and appeal Seat availability and comfort, availability of facilities, vehicle appeal, cleanliness at stops and on-board and travel sickness

Relevant for public transportA combination of subjective satisfaction levels and an inventory of characteristics

Safety and security The perceived risk of being exposed to traffic-related or an intentional act of hostility

Relevant for all travel modesSubjective risk levels that could be contrasted against reported safety and security incidents

Parking availability Ease of finding an available parking place Relevant for car. Could be measured empirically through the parking search time.

Way-finding and vehicle accessibility

Physical and mental barriers associated with travelling – in particular, vehicle design (low floor, priority seat) and way-finding (orientation)

Relevant for special mobility groupsAccessibility could be checked against fleet allocation and composition

Conclusions: The key variables that suggested to be measured by the METPEX Tool

A MEasurement Tool to determine the quality of the Passenger Experience

D2.3 – Identification of user requirements concerning the definition of variables to be measured

by the METPEX tool

Variable Definition CommentsSecondary variables

Information The availability and quality of pre-trip and en-route information

Relevant for all modes except walking. Requires a careful classification of information sources (type, trip stage, comprehensiveness)

Availability Service frequency and span, service coverage

Could be derived from the respective public transport agencies and GIS analysis

Reliability Service punctuality/regularity and travel time predictability

Relevant for public transport and carCould be derived empirically from data on travel time distribution

Comfort and appeal Seat availability and comfort, availability of facilities, vehicle appeal, cleanliness at stops and on-board and travel sickness

Relevant for public transportA combination of subjective satisfaction levels and an inventory of characteristics

Safety and security The perceived risk of being exposed to traffic-related or an intentional act of hostility

Relevant for all travel modesSubjective risk levels that could be contrasted against reported safety and security incidents

Parking availability Ease of finding an available parking place Relevant for car. Could be measured empirically through the parking search time.

Way-finding and vehicle accessibility

Physical and mental barriers associated with travelling – in particular, vehicle design (low floor, priority seat) and way-finding (orientation)

Relevant for special mobility groupsAccessibility could be checked against fleet allocation and composition