Potential uptake of adaptive transport services: An exploration of service attributes and attitudes

This paper describes an examination of people's preferences regarding a wide range of flexible and demand-responsive adaptive transport services in the Netherlands. We used a stated choice experiment, which included a set of attributes, such as access to the service, schedule, window of departure and arrival time, travel costs and travel time. Four mixed logit models were estimated based on a dataset of 3,632 observations (454 respondents). Various service attributes were found to have a significant influence on the potential of alternatives, including fixed stops and a wide time window (valued negatively) and door-to-door transport and unscheduled transport (valued positively). In addition, attitudes towards conventional and modern service types were relevant determinants for the potential uptake of ATS. In particular, having a positive attitude towards public transport was found to increase the likelihood of using stop-based (defined mobility) services. Finally, our results reveal that existing public transport users displayed a greater willingness to use flexible public transport alternatives, whereas car drivers were more inclined to use car- and ride-sharing services.