Articles

The purpose of this study is to look into patronage effects of extended supply outside peak hours on regional public transport services. Previous studies have shown that the service frequency is an attribute of great importance for regional passengers, but little is known about the details regarding peak and off-peak frequencies or service hours. The present study addresses this knowledge gap, departing from the hypothesis that additional off-peak supply means more flexibility for the passengers in terms of departure time options, and possibly also a sense of security for passengers who are uncertain about the time of their (return) trips. Essentially, the added off-peak departures may attract more passengers even if they normally do not or only occasionally use the off-peak services. The patronage effects are explored through four case studies from the region of Scania in southern Sweden. The cases include regional rail and bus services where substantial improvements have been made outside peak hours, resulting in at least hourly all-day services. The results of the study provide new insights into the fundamental planning policy trade-off between maximum frequency and span of public transport services in urban peripheries and rural areas. Importantly, the results suggest that improved time coverage may lead to substantial patronage growth, and this growth is evident also during peak hours, despite unaltered peak hour frequencies. Hence, off-peak departures cannot be assessed only through patronage levels in isolated time periods, let alone on the individual departures.

Over the last decade, the growth in demand for green innovations has become apparent. This can be linked to increased consumer awareness of the environmental problems that the world is facing. This review presents the determinants of consumer green innovation adoption across domains identified in marketing literature. This review's contribution lies in its focus on green innovations or novel products that are promoted as green alternatives to traditional products. Unlike previous studies that aim to determine the motivations of consumers to act green, including recycling, adopting green electricity, choosing public transport over cars, etc., this review outlines the motivations of consumers to adopt green innovations across domains, including organic products, electric powered vehicles, and sustainable household technologies.

We included and synthesized 47 articles published between 2010 and July 2021 in top marketing journals. After identifying the determinants, we grouped them into four categories: (1) Social, (2) Personal, (3) Innovation, and (4) Contextual and external level determinants, or what we refer to as the SPICe determinants. This categorization is based on the source of the motivation, which is social, individual, innovation-related, or contextual.

We found a lack of focus on the consumer aspects in green innovation adoption studies, highlighting the need for more research regarding what motivates consumers to adopt these new environmental products.  Furthermore, we showed that no sole determinant could predict green innovation adoption alone. Consequently, we outlined several agendas and questions that future studies could tackle and explore.

Railway traffic is growing, resulting in a highly interconnected train network. Due to the interdependence between trains’ activities, a better understanding of train passes and their effects can ensure dispatching decisions made have minimum risk of delays. The impacts of train pass on dwell time delays were investigated using historical Swedish railway operation data. Three scenarios were considered by combining the scheduled and actual operations: passes that happened as scheduled, unscheduled passes that happened in operation, and scheduled passes that were cancelled. A logistic regression model was used to explore the effects of these passes on delays. The findings show that train passes rarely occurred as scheduled, more frequently they are cancelled or unscheduled. This implies that some adjustments are required to assure the timetable’s feasibility. This study also found that the odds of delays for the cancelled pass was about 9.80 times lower than scheduled pass but 2.6 times more often for an unscheduled pass than a scheduled pass. The different types of train passes were quantified using an odds ratio to make comparisons easier for dispatching decision-making. The approach used in this study can be extended to other types of train movements such as the meeting of trains, as well as other delay-influencing factors.

In rural areas with low demand, demand responsive transport (DRT) can provide an alternative to the regular public transport bus lines, which are expensive to operate in such conditions. With simulation, we explore the potential effects of introducing a DRT service that replaces existing bus lines in Lolland municipality in Denmark, assuming that the existing demand remains unchanged. We set up the DRT service in such a way that its service quality (in terms of waiting time and invehicle time) is comparable to the replaced buses. The results show that a DRT service can be more cost efficient than regular buses and can produce significantly less CO2 emissions when the demand level is low. Additionally, we analyse the demand density at which regular buses become more cost efficient and explore how the target service quality of a DRT service can affect operational characteristics. Overall, we argue that DRT could be a more sustainable mode of public transport in low demand areas.

This paper analyzes strategies that can be successfully pursued to implement measures to reduce car traffic in what has traditionally been a very car-centric planning praxis. Analytically, the paper use path dependency theory to provide an understanding of why certain types of measure are not implemented in cities on as widespread a basis as policy objectives may require, and to understand how transport planning path dependence in urban authorities might be changed. Empirically, the analysis builds on a comparative case study of transport and land use planning in Swedish cities.

The most effective strategies do not appear to be radical policies leading to fast implementation of goals about sustainable transport, for example by implementing very car restrictive measures, even in the face of resistance from the public and from within the city administration. The results support an approach that from a strategy making perspective can be understood as an institutionalizing process by which internal organizational and external public support for car restrictive and potentially controversial measures are built.

Implementation may be achieved by building new institutions within city administrations, where routines and norms gradually change so that car restraint measures gradually become part of the normal way of doing transport planning. This then starts to lock-in certain patterns of travel and make further car restraint measures more feasible and institutionalized as part of a standard menu of measures that cities use, and not something out of the order.

Research shows passengers with disabilities continue to face widespread challenges, despite active efforts to remove barriers in public transport systems in several parts of the world. These barriers have been shown to be not only physical, but also social and attitudinal. This chapter aims to provide new knowledge about how travellers experience barriers in public transport. The focus is on bus journeys, particularly on getting on and off the vehicle. The empirical material for this study consists of complaints concerning accessibility issues on buses received by the Greater Stockholm Local Transit Company (SL) between January and October 2018, with emphasis on travellers’ personal negative experiences using public transport.

Being secure – which can be seen as the opposite of insecurity – when using public transport can be seen as a central feeling in creating accessible public transport for all. Security covers most parts of the journey: how to get on the bus, if the train is on time, whether the surroundings are threatening and so on. This chapter looks more closely at how security has become a central matter for organisations in public transport, how it is framed by these organisations, how it is linked to accessibility and why this link needs to be problematised. The analysis is based on an ethnographic approach with interviews with people with various disabilities and with officials who work on accessibility in public transport authorities, as well as go-alongs and a supplementary analysis of documents and webpages.  The analysis can be used to better understand the insecurity travellers may feel when using buses and trains.  

Electric buses can improve the environmental performance of public transport. Yet, introducing electric buses brings novel challenges, such as requirements for operational changes, new forms of institutional collaboration, increased investment costs and technological concerns. This paper investigates these challenges and strategies for managing them by comparing experiences of electric bus implementation in English and Swedish cities. The comparative approach enabled us to understand the influence of governance context, organisational practices and relations between stakeholders. The comparison shows that experiences by involved stakeholders are highly context dependant. Financial and regulatory support from the national government, along with passenger demand and route characteristics had significant influence on the implementation. However, the relationship between stakeholders involved and the division of responsibility emerged as central factors to overcome challenges – the most important being the development of functioning collaboration between the stakeholders.