Investigating the Impact of Public Transport Service Disruptions upon Passenger Travel Behaviour—Results from Krakow City

Arkadiusz Adam Drabicki, Md Faqhrul Islam and Andrzej Szarata
Additional contact information
Arkadiusz Adam Drabicki: Department of Transportation Systems, Cracow University of Technology, 31-155 Kraków, Poland
Md Faqhrul Islam: Transport Research Institute, Edinburgh Napier University, Edinburgh EH10 5DT, UK
Andrzej Szarata: Department of Transportation Systems, Cracow University of Technology, 31-155 Kraków, Poland

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 16, 1-14

Abstract: Public transport (PT) service disruptions are common and unexpected events which often result in major impediment to passengers’ typical travel routines. However, attitudes and behavioural responses to unexpected PT disruptions are still not fully understood in state-of-the-art research. The objective of this study is to examine how PT users adapt their travel choices and what travel information sources they utilize once they encounter sudden PT service disruptions. To this end, we conduct a passenger survey among PT users in the city of Kraków (Poland), consisting of a series of stated- and revealed-preference questions. Results show that passengers’ reported choices during past PT disruptions mostly involve adjusting the current PT travel routine, exposing a certain bias with their stated choices (which tend to overestimate the probability of modal shifts). Factors influencing travel behaviour shifts include frequency and recency of PT disruption experience, as well as propensity to arrive on-time. With regards to travel information sources, staff announcement and personal experience play an important role in recognizing the emerging disruption, but real-time information (RTI) sources are the most useful in planning the onward journey afterwards. Based on these, we highlight the implications for future RTI policy during PT service disruptions; in particular, the provision of a reliable time estimate until normal service conditions are resumed. Such RTI content could foster passengers’ tendency to use PT services in uncertain conditions, especially as their stated wait time tolerance often matches the actual duration of PT disruptions.

Keywords: public transport; travel behaviour; service disruption; real-time information; RTI (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/16/4889/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/16/4889/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:16:p:4889-:d:611924

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().