The use of public transport in urban areas nowadays is not at desirable levels since in most of the cases, people prefer to use their own cars, even for small length trips and this fact produces a large number of traffic and associated environmental problems. In many countries, the use of public transport is reduced during the last decade due to various reasons (e.g., insufficient public transport systems, excessive use of private cars, lack of demand management measures in central areas etc). The aim of this paper is to examine the quality of urban public transport systems as perceived by the users, taking into account the results of extensive home-based mainly, questionnaire surveys in various cities (e.g., Thessaloniki, Larissa, Trikala, Migdonia. At the same time, the existing public transport systems in these cities, their quality parameters and the measures taken in order to improve public transport competitiveness are examined and discussed. The overall objective is to relate people needs and preferences with the actual policies and measures which are implemented and to identify "gaps" between these two parts.
Abstract