The study reported in this paper aims to find a new way of evaluating public transport services in order to reflect the value placed on them by the communities which they serve. The overall objective is to find the total amount the community is willing to pay to retain public transport services, allowing both for the direct benefits and for the indirect benefits, including option values and inter-personal benefits. The development of a survey technique capable of extracting use and non-use values of public transport services from respondents was an illuminating process, revealing the need to make the issues familiar to the respondents without being directional. The design process is discussed in relation to the potential for bias and requirement to minimise it. The complex issues and unfamiliar concepts involved in the evaluation process ruled out the use of self-completion techniques. The adopted approach involves a high degree of co-operation from respondents through the completion of a seven day travel diary followed by an in-depth interview to establish their values of the use and non-use benefits of public transport services. The results of the survey work are presented and their contribution to evaluation techniques discussed.
Abstract