An empirical investigation of the impact of preferences for physical, social, and security factors on the feeling of safety on public transit

The safety and security of a transportation mode can be a decisive factor in making a choice from multiple alternatives. This study investigated how different factors, namely the physical environment, social trends and networks, and criminal activity, influence the perception of safety on transit, and also explored the effect of attitudes towards safety interventions on the decision to start using transit for non-transit users, contrasting the potential impact of more traditional approaches, like increased policing and improved lighting, with social services-oriented practices, like mobile outreach efforts to provide connections with social services and providing harm reduction supplies. The study relied on the information collected in a stated preference survey disseminated to a university community in Edmonton, Canada. It relied on the Hybrid Choice Modelling framework for the analysis. We found that people who rate the importance of physical, social, or security factors higher tend to feel less safe on Edmonton transit, with the negative effect of physical factors being the largest. For non-transit users, we identified that those who place importance on structural or social services interventions are more likely to start using transit if improvements are implemented. Moreover, social services interventions have potentially higher effects than structural ones. The findings led to the development of a transit safety needs hierarchy, based on the notion that transit safety challenges need to be addressed holistically, also targeting the root cause of the issues outside of the agency’s purview.