Modelling the causes and consequences of perceptions of personal safety on public transport ridership

Fears about personal safety on public transport can have an important impact on ridership. A range of studies have examined different factors that influence perceptions of crime risk. This study uses structural equation modelling to explore the influences on perceptions of safety on public transport and the impact these perceptions have on ridership using a survey sample from Melbourne, Australia. The largest direct influences on feelings of safety on public transport were trust in others and feeling safe in one’s home or on the street at night. Gender and age are commonly-cited influences in the literature but in this model their influence on feelings of safety was indirect. The total indirect effect of age was larger than the indirect effect of gender. Feelings of safety had a small but significant positive influence on how frequently people used public transport. This was slightly smaller than the negative effect of cars in the household but larger than the negative effect of distance from the city centre

Understanding ridership drivers for bus rapid transit systems in Australia

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems are an increasingly popular public transport option in Australia and internationally. They provide rail-like quality for bus services for a fraction of the cost of fixed rail. Many claims of high and increasing ridership have resulted from BRT system development; however it is unclear exactly which aspects of BRT system design drive this.This paper undertakes an empirical analysis of factors influencing ridership on 77 BRT and non-BRT bus routes in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane. Explanatory variables considered included service level, frequency, speed, stop spacing, separate right of way share, vehicle accessibility, employment and residential density, car ownership levels and BRT infrastructure quality.The paper reviews previous research associated with transit ridership at a route level and then presents the methodology and results.Two multiple regression analyses were undertaken to explore the influence of the explanatory variables on ridership. The first considers overall ridership (boardings per route km, BRK) and identified a statistically significant model (R2=.81). The largest influence on BRK was vehicle trips per annum (β = .82), consistent with past research, followed by vehicle accessibility (low floor buses, β = .16) and population density (β = .14). The second considered patronage per vehicle kms (PVK) which explores ridership drivers after accounting for service levels. Results for this were statistically significant but with a less powerful model, adjusted R2 = .44. There were four explanatory variables including average speed (β = -.42), weekday frequency (β = .41), BRT infrastructure ranking (β = .29) and vehicle accessibility (β = .25). An alternative form of BRT infrastructure quality was also tested but did not improve the explanatory power of the modelling.The paper concludes with a discussion of the various influences on ridership and recommendations for existing policy and future research associated with this field

Perceptions and Realities of Personal Safety on Public Transport for Young People in Melbourne

This paper aims to explore how perceptions of safety relate to actual experience in the context of urban public transport. It presents the results of an empirical analysis of links between perceptions of personal safety on public transport and compares these with actual experience of travellers. The focus of the work is a survey of young people using public transport in Melbourne Australia.The research literature demonstrates contrasting views with regard to perceptions of personal safety and actual risks. Positive links have been found in some contexts while others have found fears to be unrelated to risk. Some crime surveys and empirical studies suggest perceptions of personal safety are not justified by crime rates. However a series of surveys have shown that those with direct experience of safety incidents have greater concerns with safety. Other research suggests that feelings of anxiety and psychological factors act to make some people feel uncomfortable on public transport and that this acts to increase perceptions of poor personal safety. The paper aims to explore which factors are more important in explaining perceptions of safety.The analysis has identified a series of three statistically significant models which predict personal feelings of safety on public transport using different measures of safety perceptions. In each model psychological influences i.e. „feeling comfortable with people you don‟t know‟ had the biggest individual influence on perceptions of safety with a medium effect size. Gender and the actual experience of a personal safety incident were also found to influence perceptions of personal safety but these variables only had a small effect on perceptions of safety.The paper discusses policy and research implications of the findings including suggestions for future research

Electric cars as a path to sustainable travel behaviour: Insights from Nord-Jæren

This study examines whether promoting electric cars (EVs) to achieve greener mobility undermines the efforts to reduce car use. It specifically explores the concept of moral licensing, wherein individuals use EVs as a way to feel good about their environmental impact while continuing to drive. The study uses travel data (n = 1223) from Nord-Jæren, Norway, to develop a Structural Equation Model (SEM) that explores the relationship between environmental beliefs, attitudes, and travel behaviour (i.e., use of conventional car, electric car, bus, and bicycle). The results confirm that pro-environmental beliefs have a “spillover effect” on EV use due to existing car attitudes. The relative convenience of the car over alternative options has been found to be the most important mitigating factor in the influence of environmental beliefs on behaviour. Consequently, to reduce car use and promote more sustainable travel options, it is essential to simultaneously improve these alternatives while restricting car traffic.publishedVersio

Literature review of induced travel

Induced travel is the increase in travel attributable to transportation projects that increase capacity. This paper reviews the causes and impacts of induced travel. It discusses some of the debates in the literature around the nature and extent of induced travel and reviews the scale and time frame of the effect. It includes a discussion of the possible impacts of clearways on induced travel in Melbourne, including possible impacts on on-road public transport

The impact of transport on subjective well-being.

This thesis explores the influence that transport can have on psychological well¬being. Measures of well-being, quality of life and happiness are gradually being adopted as outcome metrics in such diverse areas as economics, national benchmarking and public health. Yet despite this growing emphasis on the importance of psychological well-being, there is little attention devoted to how the transport system can influence life satisfaction. This thesis presents empirical evidence linking transport disadvantage to lower psychological well-being. It examines this relationship across three levels: at the conceptual level (exploring hypothetical relationships based on previous literature), the unidimensional level (establishing initial empirical links between transport disadvantage and subjective well-being) and the multidimensional level (disaggregating the factors that make up transport disadvantage and social exclusion to determine their separate and combined influences on subjective well-being). The thesis begins with Chapter 1 -Introduction, which describes the background, motivation, and objectives of the thesis. This is followed by Chapter 2 -Literature Review, which builds on past research to outline a conceptual framework for how transport can act on well-being. This section also describes the shift from using solely economic indicators in policy and planning toward integrating social indicators such as quality of life and subjective well-being. A literature review paper is presented as evidence supporting the conceptual framework. A description of the research approach follows in Chapter 3 -Research Methods, which describes the survey instrument used to collect data on transport disadvantage, well-being and other concepts. It describes the survey methodology and the sampling method employed. It is supported by a paper describing the practical difficulties in recruiting disadvantaged people for large-scale surveys of this type. It closes with a brief outline of three analysis methods used in the thesis. Chapter 4 Unidimensional Analysis presents the first empirical analysis linking transport disadvantage to well-being using a heterogeneous population from Melbourne and regional Victoria. Structural equation modelling is used to operationalise 'transport disadvantage' and 'subjective well-being' as unified constructs. The research paper presented in this section identifies the overall strength of the relationship between the two constructs. Chapter 5 -Multidimensional Analysis is supported by three journal papers and looks at different sub-components impacting the relationship between transport and well-being. The first two papers in this series explore the multi-faceted nature of transport disadvantage and social exclusion into greater depth to assess the variation in impacts on well-being. The third paper spatially disaggregates the survey sample to explore the spatial variation of transport disadvantage. The thesis concludes with Chapter 6 -Discussion & Conclusions by highlighting the new contributions to knowledge identified in the thesis. It compares the empirical findings of Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 to the conceptual framework established in Chapter 2 in order to highlight areas of future research

The impact of transport on subjective well-being.

This thesis explores the influence that transport can have on psychological well¬being. Measures of well-being, quality of life and happiness are gradually being adopted as outcome metrics in such diverse areas as economics, national benchmarking and public health. Yet despite this growing emphasis on the importance of psychological well-being, there is little attention devoted to how the transport system can influence life satisfaction. This thesis presents empirical evidence linking transport disadvantage to lower psychological well-being. It examines this relationship across three levels: at the conceptual level (exploring hypothetical relationships based on previous literature), the unidimensional level (establishing initial empirical links between transport disadvantage and subjective well-being) and the multidimensional level (disaggregating the factors that make up transport disadvantage and social exclusion to determine their separate and combined influences on subjective well-being). The thesis begins with Chapter 1 -Introduction, which describes the background, motivation, and objectives of the thesis. This is followed by Chapter 2 -Literature Review, which builds on past research to outline a conceptual framework for how transport can act on well-being. This section also describes the shift from using solely economic indicators in policy and planning toward integrating social indicators such as quality of life and subjective well-being. A literature review paper is presented as evidence supporting the conceptual framework. A description of the research approach follows in Chapter 3 -Research Methods, which describes the survey instrument used to collect data on transport disadvantage, well-being and other concepts. It describes the survey methodology and the sampling method employed. It is supported by a paper describing the practical difficulties in recruiting disadvantaged people for large-scale surveys of this type. It closes with a brief outline of three analysis methods used in the thesis. Chapter 4 Unidimensional Analysis presents the first empirical analysis linking transport disadvantage to well-being using a heterogeneous population from Melbourne and regional Victoria. Structural equation modelling is used to operationalise 'transport disadvantage' and 'subjective well-being' as unified constructs. The research paper presented in this section identifies the overall strength of the relationship between the two constructs. Chapter 5 -Multidimensional Analysis is supported by three journal papers and looks at different sub-components impacting the relationship between transport and well-being. The first two papers in this series explore the multi-faceted nature of transport disadvantage and social exclusion into greater depth to assess the variation in impacts on well-being. The third paper spatially disaggregates the survey sample to explore the spatial variation of transport disadvantage. The thesis concludes with Chapter 6 -Discussion & Conclusions by highlighting the new contributions to knowledge identified in the thesis. It compares the empirical findings of Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 to the conceptual framework established in Chapter 2 in order to highlight areas of future research

Why do people fare evade? A global shift in fare evasion research

Fare evasion is a significant concern for most transit authorities. The traditional approach to fare compliance has focussed on modifying the physical control of ticketing or ticket inspection rates. Yet recently the perspective on fare evasion has begun to shift toward profiling the fare evader or understanding the customer motivations to fare evade. This paper uses a literature review method to document the characteristics of these three perspectives on fare evasion: the conventional transit system perspective, the customer profiling perspective and the customer motivations perspective. We find that the conventional transit system perspective, although straightforward to measure and control, has its limits particularly in “open” transit systems. The customer profiling perspective attempts to identify, based on demographics, which customers are more likely to fare evade. However this perspective has little use beyond profiling and is ethically questionable. The customer motivations perspective provides a richer understanding of how customers define fare evasion and what attitudes, social norms and circumstances motivates them to fare evade. Considering that between 20% and 40% of a city’s residents admit to fare evading at some point, understanding these complex motivations can help improve revenue compliance at a time when most governments heavily subsidise their transit systems

Using Lorenz curves to assess public transport equity

Equity has been a major concern of public transport provision and is required by legislation in many countries. Several approaches measure equity in transit supply however none produce a simple system-wide measure of equity performance. A new approach is presented using Lorenz curves to measure the relative supply of transit to the population. Gini coefficients provide a single measure of overall equity using this method. A system-wide assessment of overall transit supply to the population in Melbourne, Australia shows that 70% of the population shares only 19% of the supply (Gini coefficient = .68). When employment is also taken into account, the situation is not much different; 70% of jobs and population share 23% of service (G = .62). In order to gain some understanding of vertical equity, the transit supply was compared between different age, income and vehicle ownership groups. There is some evidence of higher supply for youth and low-income groups in inner Melbourne, and in all parts of Melbourne no-vehicle households lived in areas of higher transit supply. Overall it is unclear how “fair” these distributions are compared to equity in other cities since this is the first time this method has been undertaken. Projects using similar approaches should provide a good basis for establishing comparative equity between cities

Spiral Plot Analysis of Variation in Perceptions of Urban Public Transport Performance Between International Cities

This paper presents a method for comparing perceptions of transit service attributes across different customer groups. It compares customer perceptions across 22 service attributes in nine major world cities (Toronto, Ontario, Canada; New York City; San Francisco, California; Boston, Massachusetts; Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, and Melbourne, Australia; and London) by using an importance–performance analysis (IPA) framework. This paper proposes a new approach to displaying results of IPA, a spiral plot analysis (SPA), to highlight similarities and differences across a large range of attributes between disaggregate groups in the case cities. Results showed a general consistency between cities in the importance of service attributes. Greater variation in performance of attributes was found. The IPA suggested the average target area (high importance–low performance) attributes for the nine cities were (in order): “feeling safe traveling on public transport at night,” “the ability of operators to deal with service disruptions quickly,” “unexpected service disruptions don’t happen very often,” “quality of service on public transport,” “public transport operating frequently,” and “having public transport travel options available when and where I need them.” Results stressed how important unplanned disruptions were to passengers in all cities. Results for some individual cities were slightly different, although these attributes were critical for all. The SPA method more concisely illustrated similarities and differences between cities as well as highlighted which attribute scores were more important to customers. The SPA illustrated that Melbourne had some of the largest gaps between expectations and performance, whereas New York City tended to have the smallest. Areas for future research are discussed