Understanding and measuring perceptions of convenience in rail travel
Understanding and measuring perceptions of convenience in rail travel
Convenience is one of the five main recognised travel factors and an attribute commonly associated with the private car, whilst reliability, cost, time and comfort all have an important role to play in attempts to encourage a modal shift from road to rail; convenience may have an equally, or more, important influence upon modal choice decisions in a traveller’s mind. Whilst rail is unlikely to be able to match the real (or perceived) convenience of the car, for the majority of journeys it can improve in a number of key areas in order to make the journey experience more attractive for both existing and potential users.
The literature review accompanied by a number of semi-structured interviews, showed that convenience could be unambiguously represented As an embodiment of four key themes – access/egress, station facilities/environment, frequencies of service/scheduling and interchange between train services. A range of elements was established that represented the travel factor convenience with regard to rail travel. These elements formed the input to an index designed to allow the convenience of travelling from a particular station to be measured.
Common themes and correlations arising from a questionnaire survey allowed stations to be allocated to a particular category. Indices were then constructed for each category utilising regression modelling and the design of an on-site scoring system. Modelling showed that the inclusion of some elements for particular categories lowered the predictive power of the index. The indices enable comparisons to be made between rail stations of a similar type. This will allow for recognition of stations where travelling by rail is more/less convenient than elsewhere and hence improvements can be targeted where they are most required. No definition or measure of convenience will be exact, but the defined convenience index goes some way to addressing this important user need.
University of Southampton
Crockett, Jonathan
9878cd6b-c8ee-4485-bd97-c30f65aa6830
2004
Crockett, Jonathan
9878cd6b-c8ee-4485-bd97-c30f65aa6830
Crockett, Jonathan
(2004)
Understanding and measuring perceptions of convenience in rail travel.
University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis.
Record type:
Thesis
(Doctoral)
Abstract
Convenience is one of the five main recognised travel factors and an attribute commonly associated with the private car, whilst reliability, cost, time and comfort all have an important role to play in attempts to encourage a modal shift from road to rail; convenience may have an equally, or more, important influence upon modal choice decisions in a traveller’s mind. Whilst rail is unlikely to be able to match the real (or perceived) convenience of the car, for the majority of journeys it can improve in a number of key areas in order to make the journey experience more attractive for both existing and potential users.
The literature review accompanied by a number of semi-structured interviews, showed that convenience could be unambiguously represented As an embodiment of four key themes – access/egress, station facilities/environment, frequencies of service/scheduling and interchange between train services. A range of elements was established that represented the travel factor convenience with regard to rail travel. These elements formed the input to an index designed to allow the convenience of travelling from a particular station to be measured.
Common themes and correlations arising from a questionnaire survey allowed stations to be allocated to a particular category. Indices were then constructed for each category utilising regression modelling and the design of an on-site scoring system. Modelling showed that the inclusion of some elements for particular categories lowered the predictive power of the index. The indices enable comparisons to be made between rail stations of a similar type. This will allow for recognition of stations where travelling by rail is more/less convenient than elsewhere and hence improvements can be targeted where they are most required. No definition or measure of convenience will be exact, but the defined convenience index goes some way to addressing this important user need.
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Published date: 2004
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Local EPrints ID: 465366
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/465366
PURE UUID: adc225c5-8e66-46e7-bad1-0610b70bad42
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Date deposited: 05 Jul 2022 00:40
Last modified: 05 Jul 2022 00:40
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Author:
Jonathan Crockett
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