METPEX - A MEasurement Tool to determine the quality of the Passenger EXperience
Overview
Background & policy context:
Public transport is central to peoples lives and well-being, especially vulnerable groups (e.g. less mobile, elderly and disabled). It is essential in providing access to employment, shops, services and leisure. The need to encourage greater public transport use is critical in achieving sustainability targets. For many, the perception and reality of public transport does not encourage use, especially when multimodal forms of transport are needed. A holistic understanding of passenger experience is critical to develop and support transport accessibility.
Whilst previous research has focussed on different aspects of passenger experience, the diversity of tools developed limits their usefulness, effectiveness and transferability. Given the maturity of research, there is a need to synthesize methods and knowledge, to produce a pan-European standardised tool for use across transport modes and with different passenger groups to focus attention away from the design of discrete elements to the whole journey experience.
Objectives:
Taking a holistic approach to the study of the passenger experience will provide a bridge between transport, sustainability, design, accessibility and land use; acknowledging the central importance of mobility to quality of life.
To plug this gap, METPEX will develop an inclusive passenger experience measurement tool for European transport providers, passenger groups and municipalities validated through its use across 8 sites of varying transport complexity. Its development will be informed by the consortiums understanding that data collection methods themselves have to be inclusive.
The data collected will enable the creation and dissemination of service quality and accessibility benchmark indicators. Through its deployment the tool will have far reaching impact in terms of providing more grounded intelligence to inform transport design, accessibility, land use and sustainability, and ultimately improve mobility and quality of life for EU citizens.
Methodology:
The development of an inclusive, validated passenger experience measurement instrument is the first step in creating high quality, user centred, integrated, accessible public transport services, which are capable of attracting and retaining public transport users whilst meeting sustainability targets.
To this end, METPEX will (1) develop an integrated approach to the measurement of the whole journey passenger experience that takes into account human (physiological, perceptual, cognitive, sensory and affective) socio-economic, cultural, geographic and environmental factors, (2) assess the costs of ‘inaccessible transport’ for different sectors of society, (3) assess the extent to which the measurement of the passenger experience can be used to drive innovation and attention to transport quality from the customer’s perspective in the transport industry, (4) evaluate the passengers experience from different regions of Europe and support the integration of regional transport networks into an European transport network and (5) facilitate the harmonization of travel behaviour research and analysis across EU countries.
The outcomes of the project will be available for the wider scientific and stakeholders communities at the end of the project, in order to provide more immediate and ready-to-implement evaluation methods related to quality and accessibility issues in the transport system.
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