Demand for Public Transport in Germany and the USA: An Analysis of Rider Characteristics

Ralph Buehler and John Pucher

Transport Reviews, 2012, vol. 32, issue 5, 541-567

Abstract: This paper first provides a brief review of trends in public transport demand from 1980 to 2010 in 16 countries in Europe, North America, and Australia. The focus, however, is on a detailed analysis of public transport demand in Germany and the USA, using uniquely comparable national travel surveys from 2001/2002 and 2008/2009 for both countries. Public transport has been far more successful in Germany than in the USA, with much greater growth in overall passenger volumes and trips per capita. Even controlling for differences between the countries in demographics, socio-economics, and land use, logistic regressions show that Germans are five times as likely as Americans to use public transport. Moreover, public transport in Germany attracts a much broader cross-section of society and for a greater diversity of trip purposes. The success of German public transport is due to a coordinated package of mutually supportive policies that include the following: (1) more and better service, (2) attractive fares and convenient ticketing, (3) full multimodal and regional integration, (4) high taxes and restrictions on car use, and (5) land-use policies that promote compact, mixed-use developments. It is the integrated package of complementary policies that explains why public transport in Germany can compete so well with the private car, even among affluent households. Conversely, it is the lack of complementary policies that explains the continuing struggle of public transport in the USA.

Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (37)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01441647.2012.707695 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:transr:v:32:y:2012:i:5:p:541-567

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/TTRV20

DOI: 10.1080/01441647.2012.707695

Access Statistics for this article

Transport Reviews is currently edited by Professor David Banister and Moshe Givoni

More articles in Transport Reviews from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().