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Does service reliability determine transit patronage? Insights from the Los Angeles Metro bus system

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  • Chakrabarti, Sandip
  • Giuliano, Genevieve

Abstract

We explore whether improving service reliability can be effective in increasing transit patronage. Survey data shows that reliability is highly valued by passengers, because unreliability results in unpredictable wait times, missed transfer connections, and penalties associated with arriving at the destination earlier or later than desired. Consequently, transit planners have devoted significant effort towards measuring unreliability, exploring factors that cause unreliability, and developing strategies to increase reliability. However, we still know very little about how service reliability influences demand – i.e. whether reliability can be used as a tool to increase patronage.

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  • Chakrabarti, Sandip & Giuliano, Genevieve, 2015. "Does service reliability determine transit patronage? Insights from the Los Angeles Metro bus system," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 12-20.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:trapol:v:42:y:2015:i:c:p:12-20
    DOI: 10.1016/j.tranpol.2015.04.006
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    Cited by:

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    3. Audronė Minelgaitė & Renata Dagiliūtė & Genovaitė Liobikienė, 2020. "The Usage of Public Transport and Impact of Satisfaction in the European Union," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(21), pages 1-13, November.
    4. Simon Berrebi & Sanskruti Joshi & Kari E Watkins, 2020. "On Ridership and Frequency," Papers 2002.02493, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2021.
    5. Dea van Lierop & Madhav G. Badami & Ahmed M. El-Geneidy, 2018. "What influences satisfaction and loyalty in public transport? A review of the literature," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(1), pages 52-72, January.
    6. Zhang, Lin & Lu, Jian & Fu, Bai-bai & Li, Shu-bin, 2019. "A cascading failures model of weighted bus transit route network under route failure perspective considering link prediction effect," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 523(C), pages 1315-1330.
    7. Wasserman, Jacob L. & Taylor, Brian D., 2023. "State of the BART: Analyzing the Determinants of Bay Area Rapid Transit Use in the 2010s," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    8. Deka, Devajyoti & Carnegie, Jon, 2021. "Predicting transit mode choice of New Jersey workers commuting to New York City from a stated preference survey," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    9. Kim, Junghwan & Lee, Bumsoo, 2019. "More than travel time: New accessibility index capturing the connectivity of transit services," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 8-18.
    10. Erhardt, Gregory D. & Hoque, Jawad Mahmud & Goyal, Vedant & Berrebi, Simon & Brakewood, Candace & Watkins, Kari E., 2022. "Why has public transit ridership declined in the United States?," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 68-87.
    11. Cui, Boer & DeWeese, James & Wu, Hao & King, David A. & Levinson, David & El-Geneidy, Ahmed, 2022. "All ridership is local: Accessibility, competition, and stop-level determinants of daily bus boardings in Portland, Oregon," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    12. Obregón-Biosca, Saúl A., 2022. "Choice of transport in urban and periurban zones in metropolitan area," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    13. Berrebi, Simon J. & Joshi, Sanskruti & Watkins, Kari E., 2021. "On bus ridership and frequency," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 140-154.
    14. Chakrabarti, Sandip, 2015. "The demand for reliable transit service: New evidence using stop level data from the Los Angeles Metro bus system," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 154-164.
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    17. Lin Zhang & Jian Lu & Bai-bai Fu & Shu-bin Li, 2018. "A Review and Prospect for the Complexity and Resilience of Urban Public Transit Network Based on Complex Network Theory," Complexity, Hindawi, vol. 2018, pages 1-36, December.
    18. Wessel, Nate, 2019. "Accessibility Beyond the Schedule," SocArXiv c4yvx, Center for Open Science.

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