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Lost in transit? Unfamiliar public transport travel explored using a journey planner web survey

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Abstract

Attracting and retaining public transport users is fundamental to a number of land use and transport policy objectives which seek to reduce single-occupant vehicle travel. Understanding the psychological processes underlying unfamiliar public transport use may assist in achieving this aim. This paper explores unfamiliar transit travel using a survey conducted through an online travel planning website in Melbourne, Australia. The survey obtained ‘before and after’ travel data and explored the circumstances of unfamiliar travel, travel experiences, and the impact of these experiences on attitudes and behavior. A total of 3,537 ‘before’ responses and 658 eligible ‘after’ surveys were obtained including 152 unfamiliar transit journeys. Compared with familiar travel, unfamiliar travel was more commonly associated with: life events, less time living in Melbourne, travel companionship, visiting new locations, and non-work-related trip purposes. Unfamiliar travel experiences were rated more negatively for ‘navigation’ and ‘emotional state (level of anxiety)’ and more positively for ‘expected versus actual travel time’ and ‘level of comfort’. Analysis of travel attribute ratings and intention to re-patronize services indicated that there was a significant relationship between positive trip experiences and intention to re-patronize services for all users, and particularly for unfamiliar travelers. These results suggest that unfamiliar public travel experiences are quite different to familiar travel and are important to optimize to encourage re-patronization and help grow public transport markets.

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Notes

  1. During the study period, every fourth journey planner searcher was offered the poll, and if completed, a JavaScript cookie was sent to the associated computer so that the person would not be offered the poll again.

  2. It is surmised that in many instances this window would have been blocked by ‘pop-up blockers’. Hence in order for the new browser to appear for many participants, they would have had to notice the blocked pop-up, and manually instruct their browser to allow the new window.

  3. The new browser window was intended to minimize disruption to people using the journey planner by retaining their journeys.

  4. Refer to Methodology section for poll wording.

  5. The more simplistic wording was preferred for the poll whereas space permitted more detail and explanation in the follow-up survey. The former allowed for some open interpretation. There were some inconsistencies between these two responses for some participants. The follow-up question offered more specificity but asked about ‘route familiarity’ rather than ‘first time taking trip’. This slight change may explain some of the inconsistency in responses. The discrepancy illustrates a key challenge associated with this topic: familiarity can be somewhat subjective.

  6. The peak and off-peak grouping was somewhat simplistic in that it has not taken into account direction of travel; so counter-peak travel during peak time would still be categorised as peak.

  7. Interaction effects between the significant predictor variables from the regression were also examined with subsequent ANOVA’s to potentially improve model fits however interaction effects were not observed to statistically significant.

  8. Though in this analysis, background transit used was grouped somewhat arbitrarily with those who use transit for 40 % or more of their weekly travel classed as ‘frequent’ users and those who with a lower modeshare of transit classed ‘infrequent’ users.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, Institute of Transport Studies, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, 3800, Australia

    Lorelei Schmitt, Graham Currie & Alexa Delbosc

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  1. Lorelei Schmitt
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  2. Graham Currie
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  3. Alexa Delbosc
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Correspondence to Lorelei Schmitt.

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Schmitt, L., Currie, G. & Delbosc, A. Lost in transit? Unfamiliar public transport travel explored using a journey planner web survey. Transportation 42, 101–122 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11116-014-9529-2

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