TRANSIT DISTRICT CUSTOMERS IN SAN MATEO COUNTY, CALIFORNIA: WHO, WHY, WHERE, AND HOW

Faced with declining transit market share and increasing population and jobs, transit agencies must go beyond the traditional approach of trying to find the balance between maximizing ridership and meeting the needs of those who depend most on transit. Innovative approaches that account for customer perceptions and attitudes toward transit must make transit a more attractive option for customers. The efforts of the San Mateo County (California) Transit District (SamTrans) to understand customer attitudes and perceptions and create market segments that reflect and account for traveler attitudes are reported. The study uses a structural equation modeling approach along with cluster analysis to identify market segments in the population that can be targeted for new services to be offered by SamTrans. In addition, the results of the market segmentation are applied spatially so that SamTrans can customize its response to address individual market areas. The results of the market segmentation were applied based on a mode choice model that determines the market share for competing automobile, bus, and enhanced transit modes. SamTrans is provided with the means of identifying the spatial and modal distribution of their service market on the basis of customer needs. This approach allows SamTrans to design transit services that compete more effectively in the target geographic markets addressing the needs of individual market segments

Teleshopping or store shopping? A choice model for forecasting the use of new telecommunications-based services

Teleshopping provides an option to shop from home. To date, the adoption of such services by the residential sector has been slower than expected by many forecasters. In this paper teleshopping is considered within a framework of shopping behavior, including both in-home and out-of-home alternatives. Shopping is defined as the activity of gathering information that precedes the purchase decision. This definition focuses attention on the informational attributes of alternative shopping modes. It is hypothesized that, in addition to a demand for information, shopping activities also fulfill other recreational and social objectives. Consumers will choose a shopping mode that satisfies both the informational and the recreational needs, given the costs of shopping. A method is presented for forecasting the use of new technologies, by using teleshopping as a case study. The approach combines a qualitative analysis of consumers' responses to alternative shopping modes and a quantitative approach. A stated preference choice model is presented. Preliminary model results indicate that socioeconomic characteristics, within the upper-middle-class sample surveyed, do not affect shopping mode choice, whereas ratings of shopping attributes and attitudes towards shopping activities are major factors in explaining shopping choice.

Interactive stated choice surveys: a study of air travel behaviour

Stated preference (SP) experiments are becoming an increasingly popular survey methodology for investigating travel behaviour. Nevertheless, some evidence suggests that SP experiments do not mirror decisions in real markets. With an increasing number of real world decisions made using the internet, an opportunity exists to improve the realism of the SP counterparts of such choices by aligning the choice environment with such online portals. In this paper, we illustrate the benefits of such an approach in the context of air travel surveys. Our survey is modelled on the interface and functionality of an online travel agent (OTA). As with a real OTA, many ticket options are presented. Sort tools allow the options to be reordered, search tools allow options to be removed from consideration, and a further tool allows attributes to be hidden and shown. Extensive use of these tools is made by the 462 respondents. A traditional SP component was also completed by the respondents. Our exploratory analysis as well as random utility model estimation results confirm not only that respondents seem to engage more actively with the interactive survey, but also that the resulting data allows for better performance in model estimation compared to a more conventional SP experiment. These results have implications for the study of other complex travel choices where interactive surveys may similarly be preferable to standard approaches