Demand Impacts of Bus Quality Improvements

This papers stems from research commission by the Department for Transport (DfT) in 2007 entitled, The Role of Soft Measures in Influencing Patronage Growth and Modal Split in the Bus Market in England (AECOM,2009). The key objective of the study was to investigate the role of ‘soft’ measures and how they influenced bus demand in England. A wide range of measures can come under the definition of ‘soft’ (Balcombe et al., 2004) and these can include driver training and attitudes; cleanliness; passenger information; security; accessibility; fares simplicity. A number of studies in the past (SDG, 1996; Hensher & Priori, 2002; ACCENT, 2002) have used Stated Preference (SP) techniques to estimate valuations for these and other ‘soft’ measures. No attempt, as far as we are aware, has been made to estimate the direct demand impacts that result from the introduction of one, or more, soft measure onto a bus service. This therefore is the key difference between previous studies and the research reported in this paper. With this in mind we report only the findings of the main SP modelling work that was carried out by ourselves within this project and specifically the elasticity demand models estimated from it. We note that this forms only a part of the overall research as carried out by ourselves and the lead consultant AECOM and which is reported in the final project report (AECOM, 2009). We also note at this point that the views outlined in this paper are entirely our own and do not necessarily reflect those of the DfT who commissioned this piece of research or of AECOM the lead consultant.