To be able to improve the quality and to control the costs of public transport systems, it is necessary to know which elements determine the quality, and the extent to which they are effective. Analysis of the quality-determining elements of a certain relation (i.e. system variables), leads to distinction between availability in place, availability in time and level of comfort. In the case of research into the influence of the system variables on quality, two levels of detail can be distinguished. At the first level the contribution of each system variable to trip-impedance is estimated on the basis of route-choice-behaviour. Hereby a distinction is made between different categories of travellers and trips. At the second level of detail the influence of different appearances of the system variables is determined. In this case a method developed by Soengen, based on travellers' judgements of the time-length of different system variables, can be used. Equally detailed insight in the phenomenon quality will be needed in every field of application. This will depend on the planning-level adopted. For the covering abstract of the conference see IRRD 286502.
Abstract