PUBLICATION

MTI Report 01-04
How Best to Serve Seniors on Existing Transit Services

Increases in the size of the elderly population and changes in travel patterns are expected to create significant new mobility expectations. The research documented here is intended to provide tools for transit providers and public policy makers to make the greatest use of existing fixed-route transit resources to serve the mobility needs of the growing senior population. The research demonstrates how customer satisfaction surveys can be used to set priorities for improving fixed-route service. The primary analysis technique used is the impact score technique. This method determines the relative impact of various improvements on overall customer satisfaction. It does this by measuring how much customers’ overall satisfaction changes depending on their satisfaction with particular aspects of service. Satisfaction data from rider surveys from three West Coast transit systems were analyzed, comparing the responses of seniors and non-seniors.

ABSTRACT

Increases in the size of the elderly population and changes in travel patterns are expected to create significant new mobility expectations. The research documented here is intended to provide tools for transit providers and public policy makers to make the greatest use of existing transit resources to serve mobility needs of the growing senior population. The research demonstrates how customer satisfaction surveys can be used to set priorities for improving existing fixed route services. The primary analysis technique used is the impact score technique. This method determines the relative impact of various improvements on overall customer satisfaction. It does this by measuring how much customers’ overall satisfaction changes depending on their satisfaction with particular aspects of service. Satisfaction data from rider surveys from three West Coast transit systems were analyzed, comparing the responses of seniors and non-seniors.

Many of the results are specific to individual transit systems; however, a number of general patterns were observed: 1) in general, seniors appear to rate service attributes more highly than do non-seniors; 2) while importance scores for non-seniors tended to cluster together, the results for seniors appear to indicate that certain service attributes are significantly more important than others; 3) at the two systems that used a similar method of survey administration and question format, there is broad consistency in importance ratings for seniors. Among the most important attributes at both systems were drivers, reliable equipment, and on-time performance. Direct questioning suggests that the greatest increase in ridership would result from adding service. However, the impact analysis shows that other improvements could have a greater impact on customer satisfaction.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

TECHNICAL

MTI Report 01-04
How Best to Serve Seniors on Existing Transit Services
Principal Investigator: David Koffman
Published: September 2001
Keywords: Elderly persons; Public transit; Surveys; Transit operating agencies; Transit vehicle operations.