What about the Travel Experience? Service Development in Public Transport Based on an Exploratory Survey on Instruments and Stakeholder Attitudes

Abstract

The paper aims to make the “travel experience” accessible to transport planning in general and public transport service development in particular. This dimension of mobility has so far been neglected by transport planning, while social-science mobility studies have had an analytical rather than practical approach to it. The paper proposes criteria to disaggregate and handle the “travel experience” in public transport development and examines how current industry practices take account of this subject. Media reports were analyzed to classify planning, marketing and customer care initiatives, and 22 case studies were analyzed regarding the organization, implementation and experiences made. The paper concludes that initiatives undertaken so far are mainly considered in terms of their publicity value, rather than their contribution to service development. A wide range of concepts is used at least occasionally, but only part of the experiential needs is targeted.