Bus patronage in the UK has been in decline for a considerable number of years and this trend is expected to continue. To help halt this decline and encourage greater patronage, it will be essential to improve the quality of bus service to the travelling public. Many aspects of a bus service can influence passenger perception of its performance including: reliability, walk time to and from bus stops, information, fare levels, ticketing systems, bus stop facilities, vehicle image, comfort and cleanliness and staff attitudes. There are also many factors which affect the ability of bus operators to provide high quality services. Some of these factors are the responsibility of bus operators but others lie outside their others lie outside their control and come with the remit of other organisations such as the planning and regulatory bodies and the highway authority. In order to identify the nature and scale of particular problems and who is responsible for tackling them, it is essential to monitor and quantify the performance of a range of indicators of bus service quality. This paper describes a research project which could be used to assess the performance of bus services in a deregulated environment. The indicators target four main areas, network design, bus service reliability, operator performance and passenger information.
Abstract