Over the past few years, significant numbers of articulated buses have entered service on the streets of London. Certainly these vehicles can easily be distinguished by passengers as being different from conventional buses, but do they perceive them as a significant improvement over more conventional vehicles? And if so, how do they compare against trams? Can articulated buses provide a comparable quality of service to tram at much lower cost? In this paper we present findings from a recent investigation of passengers' perceptions of various public transport modes that will be used toinform forecasting work for tram schemes in London. Stated Preference surveys were undertaken in two London corridors, one served by both conventional bus and tram, and the other by conventional and articulated buses. Passengers were asked to trade-off hypothetical journeys involving the two types of public transport currently available to them, and the data obtainedwere used to quantify the strength of users' preference for one mode overthe other. The results from our study suggest that though there is a strong preference for tram over conventional bus, over and above differences in travel time and cost. Crucially, there is no statistically significant preference for articulated bus over conventional bus, and indeed, quite thereverse in some circumstances. Though this result may surprise some within the public transport industry, it is supported by first hand accounts obtained from passengers as part of the study that identify the specific issues that influence passengers perceptions of the quality of different types of bus. For the covering abstract see ITRD E135582.
Abstract