How Best to Serve Seniors on Existing Transit Services, MTI Report 01-04

Increases in the size of the elderly population and changes in travel patterns are expected to create significant new mobility expectations. The research documented here is intended to provide tools for transit providers and public policy makers to make the greatest use of existing transit resources to serve mobility needs of the growing senior population. The research demonstrates how customer satisfaction surveys can be used to set priorities for improving existing fixed route services. The primary analysis technique used is the impact score technique. This method determines the relative impact of various improvements on overall customer satisfaction. It does this by measuring how much customers’ overall satisfaction changes depending on their satisfaction with particular aspects of service. Satisfaction data from rider surveys from three West Coast transit systems were analyzed, comparing the responses of seniors and non-seniors. Many of the results are specific to individual transit systems; however, a number of general patterns were observed: 1) in general, seniors appear to rate service attributes more highly than do non-seniors; 2) while importance scores for non-seniors tended to cluster together, the results for seniors appear to indicate that certain service attributes are significantly more important than others; 3) at the two systems that used a similar method of survey administration and question format, there is broad consistency in importance ratings for seniors. Among the most important attributes at both systems were drivers, reliable equipment, and on-time performance. Direct questioning suggests that the greatest increase in ridership would result from adding service. However, the impact analysis shows that other improvements could have a greater impact on customer satisfaction

Interdependent policy instrument preferences: a two-mode network approach

In policymaking, actors are likely to take the preferences of others into account when strategically positioning themselves. However, there is a lack of research that conceives of policy preferences as an interdependent system. In order to analyse interdependencies, we link actors to their policy preferences in water protection, which results in an actor-instrument network. As actors exhibit multiple preferences, a complex two-mode network between actors and policies emerges. We analyse whether actors exhibit interdependent preference profiles given shared policy objectives or social interactions among them. By fitting an exponential random graph model to the actor-instrument network, we find considerable clustering, meaning that actors tend to exhibit preferences for multiple policy instruments in common. Actors tend to exhibit interdependent policy preferences when they are interconnected, that is, they collaborate with each other. By contrast, actors are less likely to share policy preferences when a conflict line divides them

Designing IS service strategy: an information acceleration approach

Information technology-based innovation involves considerable risk that requires insight and foresight. Yet, our understanding of how managers develop the insight to support new breakthrough applications is limited and remains obscured by high levels of technical and market uncertainty. This paper applies a new experimental method based on “discrete choice analysis” and “information acceleration” to directly examine how decisions are made in a way that is behaviourally sound. The method is highly applicable to information systems researchers because it provides relative importance measures on a common scale, greater control over alternate explanations and stronger evidence of causality. The practical implications are that information acceleration reduces the levels of uncertainty and generates a more accurate rationale for IS service strategy decisions

On the Suitability of Genetic-Based Algorithms for Data Mining

Data mining has as goal to extract knowledge from large databases. A database may be considered as a search space consisting of an enormous number of elements, and a mining algorithm as a search strategy. In general, an exhaustive search of the space is infeasible. Therefore, efficient search strategies are of vital importance. Search strategies on genetic-based algorithms have been applied successfully in a wide range of applications. We focus on the suitability of genetic-based algorithms for data mining. We discuss the design and implementation of a genetic-based algorithm for data mining and illustrate its potentials

Wireless technology and clinical influences in healthcare setting: an Indian case study

This chapter argues that current techniques used in the domain of Information Systems is not adequate for establishing determinants of wireless technology in a clinical setting. Using data collected from India, this chapter conducted a first order regrssion modeling (factor analysis) and then a second order regression modeling (SEM) to establish the determinants of clinical influences as a result of using wireless technology in healthcare settings. As information systems professionals, the authors conducted a qualitative data collection to understand the domain prior to employing a quantitative technique, thus providing rigour as well as personal relevance. The outcomes of this study has clearly established that there are a number of influences such as the organisational factors in determining the technology acceptance and provides evidence that trivial factors such as perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness are no longer acceptable as the factors of technology acceptance

Integrated pest management portfolios in UK arable farming: results of a farmer survey.

Farmers are faced with a wide range of pest management (PM) options that can be adopted in isolation or alongside complementary or substitute strategies. This paper presents the results of a survey of UK cereal producers, focusing on the character and diversity of PM strategies currently used by, or available to, farmers. In addition, the survey asked various questions pertaining to agricultural policy participation, attitude towards environmental issues, sources of PM advice and information and the important characteristics of PM technologies. The results indicate that many farmers do make use of a suite of PM techniques, and that their choice of integrated PM (IPM) portfolio appears to be jointly dictated by farm characteristics and government policy. Results also indicate that portfolio choice does affect the number of subsequent insecticide applications per crop. These results help to identify the type of IPM portfolios considered to be adoptable by farmers and highlight the importance of substitution in IPM portfolios. As such, these results will help to direct R&D effort towards the realisation of more sustainable PM approaches and aid the identification of potential portfolio adopters. These findings highlight the opportunity that a revised agri-environmental policy design could generate in terms of enhancing coherent IPM portfolio adoption

Charging into the Blend Wall: Conjoint Analysis of Consumer Willingness to Pay for Ethanol Blend Fuels

Ethanol use in the U.S. rose sharply in recent years due to public policy and a spike in petroleum prices, and remains high. Public support for ethanol includes mandated minimum levels of use nationwide. However, rather little is known about consumer demand for ethanol and much less about demand by type of blend and ethanol source. We used trial survey data and conjoint analysis to overcome the lack of historical data on consumers’ preferences for ethanol blend fuels. Preliminary findings based on responses from vehicle drivers in Missouri suggest that price is the primary factor behind fuel preferences. The disclosure of ethanol originated from woody feedstocks had a significant effect on preferences ceteris paribus. Ethanol blends of 20 percent had a negatively non-significant statistical effect compared to no-ethanol fuels or those with a 10 percent content. These findings will be tested using different models expanded to a nationwide pool of motor vehicle drivers.Ethanol blend fuels, consumers’ willingness to pay, choice-based model, Consumer/Household Economics, Environmental Economics and Policy, Production Economics,