Public Transport Quality and Travel Experience: The Italian Case Study

Quality in public transport is an important driver for customer satisfaction and for the competition (in the market) among public transport operators. There are both standard and non-standard attributes that influence users choices. For example, among the standards one there are the punctuality and regularity of services, the on-board travel time (e.g. how much time and with what comfort/pleasure) and the cleanliness of trains/buses. While, among the non-standard perceived quality attributes probably the most impacting one is the aesthetic and the design values of transport terminals (hedonic quality). Starting from these consideration in this research was investigated the role of the hedonic quality of the terminals (e.g. aesthetic, service offered and comfort) within the overall quality perception of the travel (travel experience). The case study was the extraurban bus services in Italy. A specific mobility survey was carried out in some Italian bus terminal. The analysis of the survey results shows that the willingness to pay for an high quality terminal is about the 30% of the actual ticket price. Furthermore, a travel experience effect was observed; the average perceived transport quality varies with the trip characteristic. Even if a passenger spend time (e.g. waiting for a bus) in an high quality terminal, the overall perceived quality of the trip is “low” for the users that carry out a “long trip” (e.g. the overall travel time greater than 2 hours or were used more than one transport mode, while the opposite occurs for the “short trips”. This results is the main original findings of this research and if confirmed will allow to conclude that the overall quality perception of an high quality terminal could be reduced (or even eliminated) if the overall travel is on average a "low quality" experience (e.g. elevated waiting times, not regular services, many interchange modes). This circumstance is known as "travel experience effect" and could be considered an explicit design variable in transport planning

An activity-based approach for complex travel behaviour modelling

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The acceptability value of autonomous vehicles: A quantitative analysis of the willingness to pay for shared autonomous vehicles (SAVs) mobility services

The massive diffusion of autonomous vehicles will allow making transportation systems safer, efficient and less pollutant. Nevertheless, there are still some obstacles in the adoption of driverless vehicles of a technological, normative, ethical and social nature. Many surveys observed a priori reluctance towards autonomous vehicles, due to their implications for personal safety. This reluctance could mean a sort of lack of trust (unwillingness to use/pay) that several authors have observed, but only few have measured. Although the main interest of manufacturers/policy-makers is the diffusion of autonomous vehicles in the private car market, it is probably in the public transport sector that this technology will be used first. The aim of the research was to propose an estimation of the value of this reluctance to change (acceptability) towards shared autonomous services. A discrete choice experiment was performed in Naples (Italy) among bus/taxi users. A Mixed Logit model with random coefficients and panel data was estimated. The results show that the average transport user has an a priori reluctance to use fully-automated bus/taxi of −2.31 Euro/trip. Category-specific estimates were also performed resulting that male 18–40 year-old (>40 year-old) have a reluctance in using driverless transit services 53% (36%) lower than females. Of interest are the results relative to those who commonly use on-board automation features, for which a positive willingness to pay for driverless vehicles was estimated (+1.21 Euro/trip). Obtained results strongly suggest that the main barrier preventing mass adoption of autonomous vehicles may also be psychological besides technological

Urban sustainable mobility. Part 2: Simulation models and impacts estimation

The urban sustainable transport policies are very different in terms of costs and expected benefits, and the effects of these policies and their combinations are difficult to anticipate on a purely intuitive basis and sometimes the end effect could be contrary to intuitive expectations (e.g. policies aimed to reduce pollution, ending up in increasing it). In this context, the concept of eco-rational planning assumes a central role. This means identifying the right mixture of interventions to be implemented on the transport system that is: rational for the transport system and sustainable for people's health and for the environmental and requires minimal economic resources. Starting from the results of the compendium paper (Part 1), the paper investigate on non-rational sustainable transport policies through an ex-post analysis on real casa application in Naples (Italy)

Particulate Matter Short-Term Exposition, Mobility Trips and COVID-19 Diffusion: A Correlation Analyses for the Italian Case Study at Urban Scale

The conjecture discussed in this paper was that the daily number of certified cases of COVID-19 is direct correlated to the average particular matter (PM) concentrations observed several days before when the contagions occurred (short-term effect), and this correlation is higher for areas with a higher average seasonal PM concentration, as a measure of prolonged exposure to a polluted environment (long-term effect). Furthermore, the correlations between the daily COVID-19 new cases and the mobility trips and those between the daily PM concentrations and mobility trips were also investigated. Correlation analyses were performed for the application case study consisting in 13 of the main Italian cities, through the national air quality and mobility monitoring systems. Data analyses showed that the mobility restrictions performed during the lockdown produced a significant improvement in air quality with an average PM concentrations reduction of about 15%, with maximum variations ranging between 25% and 42%. Estimation results showed a positive correlation (stronger for the more highly polluted cities) between the daily COVID-19 cases and both the daily PM concentrations and mobility trips measured about three weeks before, when probably the contagion occurred. The obtained results are original, and if confirmed in other studies, it would lay the groundwork for the definition of the main context variables which influenced the COVID-19 spread. The findings highlighted in this research also supported by the evidence in the literature and allow concluding that PM concentrations and mobility habits could be considered as potential early indicators of COVID-19 circulation in outdoor environments. However, the obtained results pose significant ethical questions about the proper urban and transportation planning; the most polluted cities have not only worst welfare for their citizens but, as highlighted in this research, could lead to a likely greater spread of current and future respiratory and/or pulmonary health emergencies. The lesson to be learned by this global pandemic will help planners to better preserve the air quality of our cities in the post-COVID-19 era

Transportation Planning, Mobility Habits and Sustainable Development in the Era of COVID-19 Pandemic

Starting from December 2019, the world has faced an unprecedented health crisis caused by the new coronavirus (COVID-19) due to SARS-CoV-2 [...

The hedonic value of railways terminals. A quantitative analysis of the impact of stations quality on travellers behaviour

Transit services quality has long been recognized as an important factor in influencing travelers behaviour and terminals quality is certainly part of it. As a matter of fact a number of transit promotion policies explicitly based on qualitative factors and specifically high architectural standards are being adopted in designing new railways stations and several examples of remarkable architecture applied to railways stations can be found all round the world. In spite of this, the literature in transportation modelling has not yet analyzed the impact of the hedonic quality on travelers’ behaviour quantifying whether and by how much it increases their propensity to use rail services. A binomial logit model, simulating the choice between a traditional rail line and a new line open in 2009 in the northern area of Naples – Italy (high architectural and aesthetic standards railways) was specified and estimated for trips having both routing options between the same origin–destination pair. The model was specified with serial correlation in residuals and estimated using RP–SP data for different users’ segments. The main difference between the two alternatives in the real scenario was the stations architectural quality as all other attributes, including travel time, frequency, access and egress times, trains and riding comfort, security, were basically the same. In Stated Preference experiments several scenarios were presented to users with four levels of level of service attributes and factorial fractional design. The results show a significant impact of stations architectural quality on users’ choices and allow to estimate reciprocal substitution coefficients with respect to other level of service attributes. The average monetary ‘‘value of stations quality’’ was quantified in 35 Euro cents/trip for students and in 50 Euro cents/trip for commuters (+43%). Alternative-specific waiting time coefficients showed a context effect for both students and commuters (respectively 31% and 35% lower values for traditional stations) but they did not explain entirely the preference for high architectural railways line. It also resulted that female travelers showed a significant preference for stations quality (+33% with respect to male). Other results related to access and egress time suggest that, if everything else being equal, the high architectural line have a larger ‘‘catchment area’’ with respect to a traditional rail of approximately 400 meters by walking. The results of this research should be compared with those from other contexts as they have a potential impact for railways planning showing that architectural quality of stations should be considered as an explicit design variable and could be compared with other, possibly more expensive, improvements (e.g. frequency increases, accessibility improvements) and poses new challenges for modelling user behaviour and quality-related measures

A Quality-Based Approach to Public Transportation Planning: Theory and a Case Study

Methodologies for defining standard quality indicators are important to assess service quality in public transport. The article proposes a method to integrate EU service quality standards in the transport planning process. It also investigates the effects of a set of large-scale transport policies in Campania region, Italy, in terms of service quality and ridership variations. Results of 10 years-long transport policies (43,115 million invested) shows an impressive increase in both service quality and ridership. The article also compares perceived and measured service quality indicators for a new high quality metro line. Results point to new perspectives in modelling users’ travel behavior and related quality measures