Travel time reliability and customer satisfaction in Dutch rail transport

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Travel time reliability and customer
satisfaction in Dutch rail transport
Railway Seminar, Oxford University, Transport
Studies Unit, September 24, 2007
Martijn Brons Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam

• Joint with
• Piet Rietveld

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Background (1)
Reliability and travel behaviour
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Reliability measurement in the Dutch rail sector
Background (2)

• Ministry of Transport / Dutch Railways
• Punctuality the percentage of trains that
  arrive with less than 3 minutes of delay
• Points of critique
• Focus on travel time reliability
• Focus on single rail trip, not on door-to-door
  journey
• Focus on punctuality on arrival, not on
  departure.
• 3 minutes is arbitrary, no attention to length of
  delay
• Focus on delays only, not on early
  arrivals/departures.
• Based on trains, not on passengers
• Is this critique valid ?

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Research objectives

• Identify the importance of travel time
  reliability compared to other quality and
  reliability aspects of the train trip
• Compare various indicators and specifications of
  travel time reliability in their ability to
  explain customer satisfaction with travel time
  reliability.

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Outline

• Data
• Part I Importance of travel time reliability
• Model specification
• Estimation results
• Part II Comparing various reliability indicators
  
• Model specification
• Data issues
• Estimation results
• Conclusions

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Data

• Customer Satisfaction data (individual level)
• Satisfaction scores for 10 rail trip dimensions
  overall satisfaction
• Origin-, destination-, transfer- and home
  station
• General individual characteristics (age, gender)
• Domain-specific individual characteristics
  (travel frequency, peak hour, car available,
  travel purpose, type of ticket)
• Travel time reliability data (station level)
• 6 Indicators of travel time reliability
• For arrival and departure
• For peak hours vs. off peak hours, weekend vs.
  weekdays
• On a monthly basis

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Part I Model specification

• Dependent variable
• Overall Satisfaction score of travelling by train
• Explanatory variables
• Satisfaction scores dimensions 1 to 10
• Control variables
• Dummy variables w.r.t. individual characteristics
• S a ß1S1... ß10S10 ?D µ

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Part I Estimation results
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Part II Model specification

• Dependent variable
• Satisfaction with travel time reliability
• Explanatory variable (6 indicators of travel time
  reliability AD)
• gt3 min delayed (Dutch Railways)
• gt9 min delayed
• Average delay in minutes
• Average delay in minutes of trains with gt3 min
  delay
• 80th minus 50th percentile
• Standard deviation
• Control variables
• Dummy variables w.r.t. individual characteristics
• SR a ?R ?D µ

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Part II Data (revisited)

• Customer Satisfaction Research (individual level)
• Satisfaction scores for 34 trip attributes
  overall satisfaction
• Origin-, destination-, transfer- and home
  station
• General individual characteristics (age, gender)
• Domain-specific individual characteristics
  (travel frequency, peak hour, car available,
  travel purpose, type of ticket)
• Travel time reliability data (station level)
• 6 Indicators of travel time reliability
• For arrival and departure
• For peak hours / off peak hours, weekend vs.
  weekdays
• On a monthly basis

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Part II Assumptions

• Score is based on reliability at Home station
• Peak hour travellers ? reliability during peak
  hours
• Weekend card ? reliability during weekends
• Learning model R wRt w2Rt-1w3Rt-2.
• (estimation w 0.4)

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Part II Model specifications

• Base model
• SR a ?R ?D µ
• Indicator punctuality
• Specification 1 R RA
• Specification 2 R wARA wDRD, with wA wD
  1

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Part II Estimation results (1)
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Part II Additional assumption

• If the individual has fidelity card for a
  specific route or travel purpose is commuting
  then satisfaction depends on reliability at
  Origin/Destination, Transfer and Home station.
• Base model
• SR a ?R ?D µ
• Specification 3 R WAwA,O-DRA,O-DwA,TRA,TwA,H
  RA,H
• WDwD,O-DRD,O-DwD,TRD,TwD,HRD,H

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Part II Estimation results (2)
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Part II Estimation results (2)
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Part II Estimation results (2)
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Part II Estimation results (4)
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Conclusions

• Ministry of Transport / Dutch Railways
• Punctuality the percentage of trains that
  arrive with less than 3 minutes of delay
• Focus on travel time reliability is justified
• Connectivity reliability is very important
• Reliability on departure also plays a role
• lt 3 minutes indicator performs well but not
  better than indicator based on average delay in
  minutes
• Not only delays but also early departures affect
  satisfaction

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Thank you!mbrons_at_feweb.vu.nl
This research is carried out in the framework of
the TRANSUMO project Reliability of Transport
Chains We thank the Dutch Railways (NS) and
ProRail for the data