Resources

Reliability in public transport is important for operators and passengers alike. Reliability can affect users in one of two ways: as a delay when picking up the passenger and as a delay when the passenger is on the service. Reliability measures are typically used within performance regimes to evaluate the quality of service of public transport providers. This research, carried out in 2007, aims to find a method of measuring the value placed on public transport reliability in different contexts in New Zealand. As part of this project, a stated preference survey was designed and implemented to collect information about passengers’ current public transport usage, their attitudes to reliability and how they valued reliability.

Using these stated preference surveys, four initial models were estimated: a disaggregate model, a mean model, a variance model and a mean-variance model. The preferred approach, based on ease of use and comparability to international measures, was the mean delay model.

A value of time was determined from the departure stated preference survey. Values of time ranged around $8/hour. The surveys also found that rail users consistently had a value of time almost twice that of bus users, which is consistent with international findings.

Keywords: bus, customer service, delay, evaluation, New Zealand, public expectations, public transport, rail, reliability, surveys, time, valuation