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An international review of experiences from on-demand public transport services

Pettersson, Fredrik LU orcid (2019) In K2 working papers
Abstract
The aim of this report is to contribute to develop knowledge about what the developments in positioning and smartphone technology bring to the table for the public transport sector.

The overarching question in the report is: can new technology improve demand-responsive transport (DRT)?

The cases analysed in this report were selected using a number of criteria to delimit the sample and distinguish the cases from “traditional” DRT and from ride-hailing services. A total of 35 different services were identified that met the criteria for what this report refers to as on-demand public transport. The identified cases are located in nine different countries and 23 different cities or regions, and includes services that have... (More)
The aim of this report is to contribute to develop knowledge about what the developments in positioning and smartphone technology bring to the table for the public transport sector.

The overarching question in the report is: can new technology improve demand-responsive transport (DRT)?

The cases analysed in this report were selected using a number of criteria to delimit the sample and distinguish the cases from “traditional” DRT and from ride-hailing services. A total of 35 different services were identified that met the criteria for what this report refers to as on-demand public transport. The identified cases are located in nine different countries and 23 different cities or regions, and includes services that have been or are operating in major urban areas, smaller towns, suburbs, semi-rural and rural areas. Nine services, most of which are subsidised by the public sector, have been analysed in more detail.
The comparison of the cases reveal differences and similarities concerning aspects such as vehicles and fleet sizes, and service partnerships. Different variants are also described regarding operational policies of the services. This includes origin-destination policies, areas covered by the services, where to pick up and drop off passengers, operating hours, booking method, time of booking, payment and pricing.

For the nine cases that are the focus of the report a comparison of patronage, productivity and production costs are also made. A main conclusion from this part of the study is that so far there is scant evidence that new technology improves the productivity of DRT. This suggests that new technology is no panacea for fixing the problems of DRT and the study shows that thus far, at least, on-demand public transport hardly represents a transport revolution. 
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author
organization
publishing date
type
Working paper/Preprint
publication status
published
subject
in
K2 working papers
pages
35 pages
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
e9e0079b-609f-4da9-a075-2a292d5aff03
date added to LUP
2019-06-05 12:20:08
date last changed
2019-07-02 02:19:12
@misc{e9e0079b-609f-4da9-a075-2a292d5aff03,
  abstract     = {{The aim of this report is to contribute to develop knowledge about what the developments in positioning and smartphone technology bring to the table for the public transport sector. <br/><br/>The overarching question in the report is: can new technology improve demand-responsive transport (DRT)? <br/><br/>The cases analysed in this report were selected using a number of criteria to delimit the sample and distinguish the cases from “traditional” DRT and from ride-hailing services. A total of 35 different services were identified that met the criteria for what this report refers to as on-demand public transport. The identified cases are located in nine different countries and 23 different cities or regions, and includes services that have been or are operating in major urban areas, smaller towns, suburbs, semi-rural and rural areas. Nine services, most of which are subsidised by the public sector, have been analysed in more detail. <br/>The comparison of the cases reveal differences and similarities concerning aspects such as vehicles and fleet sizes, and service partnerships. Different variants are also described regarding operational policies of the services. This includes origin-destination policies, areas covered by the services, where to pick up and drop off passengers, operating hours, booking method, time of booking, payment and pricing. <br/><br/>For the nine cases that are the focus of the report a comparison of patronage, productivity and production costs are also made. A main conclusion from this part of the study is that so far there is scant evidence that new technology improves the productivity of DRT. This suggests that new technology is no panacea for fixing the problems of DRT and the study shows that thus far, at least, on-demand public transport hardly represents a transport revolution. <br/>}},
  author       = {{Pettersson, Fredrik}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{06}},
  note         = {{Working Paper}},
  series       = {{K2 working papers}},
  title        = {{An international review of experiences from on-demand public transport services}},
  url          = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/65533516/An_international_review_of_experiences_from_on_demand_public_transport_services.pdf}},
  year         = {{2019}},
}