METPEX: A MEasurement Tool to determine the quality of the Passenger EXperience

Project team

Professor Andree Woodcock (PI), Dr Jane Osmond, Professor Nigel Berkeley

Partners

The METPEX consortium was coordinated by Andree Woodcock at Coventry University and brought together 16 European partners from 12 countries:

Coventry University (IT and L, SURGE, SGI), UK; Interactions, Ireland; Signosis, Belgium; ITENE, Spain; Zurich University, Switzerland; Euroklies, Italy; Politechnico di Turino, Italy; AnGRE, Greece; KTH, Sweden; Integral Consulting, Romania; FIA, Belgium; TERO Ltd, Greece; Smart Continent, Lithuania; SBOING, Greece; VTM Consultores, Portugal; Coma Servizi per la Mobilita, Italy.

Duration of project

1/11/2012 - 31/12/2015

Project overview

METPEX arose out of the need to increase sustainable transport and reduce carbon emissions in urban areas.

One way of achieving this would be by increasing the number of users of public (and active) transport. A necessary first step in shifting perceptions of PT is the need to create a set of inclusive, reliable and validated measurement instruments to measure  the quality of whole, multi modal journeys.

Two central arguments of METPEX were that:

 1) travellers would only be attracted to public/active forms of transport if they are perceived to be of high quality;

 2) that the whole journey experience needs to be the focus of attention as this corresponds to mobility patterns.

Existing measurement instruments were reviewed to have several shortcomings. For example, they may have been developed to measure just one stage of the journey (e.g. the journey on a tram, train, or bus), rarely included transitional points or reported results (e.g. issues with stations and stops) which were not the direct responsibility of the commissioning operator, may not have been validated, were not inclusive and failed to consider the whole journey.

Therefore METPEX aimed to develop a set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) which could be used by transport operators and authorities, local authorities and other interest groups to measure the quality of the whole journey experience. The project sought to capture multimodal experiences by measuring travel experiences from journey planning to arrival at destination, allowing for measurement of multimodal experiences derived from the use of buses, trains, trams, urban waterways, walking, cycling and driving. Mindful of the need to be inclusive the project specifically addressed the needs of ‘traditionally hard to reach groups’. These were defined as commuters, women, travellers with children or other dependents, the elderly, young people, rural dwellers, those on low incomes, with communication difficulties and mobility impairments.

In order to develop the KPIs the relative importance of over 1000 potential factors was evaluated. The most important of these for each transport mode, traveller type and quality factor were used to create the METPEX measurement instruments delivered to travellers in retrospective (paper based and web online), real time (game and navigation apps) and focus groups formats.

Trials of these tools were conducted in Bucharest, Grevena, Coventry, Rome, Vilnius, Dublin, FIA network, Stockholm and Valencia in order to collect Pan European data from which the final KPIs could be developed.

The results showed that overall travel satisfaction reported by different travel mode users correlate with different key determinants, different user groups have different needs, the determinants of satisfaction may vary depending on the main travel modes and the complexity of the journey (in terms of trip composition). The effects of insecurity and tension among special needs travellers in particular may damage their confidence to travel independently as and when they want.

Using the results, a series of robust KPIs were developed which may be used to measure overall satisfaction, or different aspects of the journey, for different user groups and modes of transport. The results were fed back to stakeholders in order to inform current transport systems, assess the usefulness of the METPEX toolset and inform the business plan.

In summary, METPEX:

• Conducted two Pan European surveys in order to develop KPIs
• Gathered feedback from stakeholders to inform future development of the METPEX toolset and assess the impact of user experience on transport policy
• Delivered a conference, policy recommendations, communication and business plan
• Created a matrix for the evaluation of innovative technologies to support integrative accessibility
• Developed a method for the classification of land use types in connection with accessibility, and a new definition of accessibility
• Developed strategies for creating accessible and optimized transport systems

Project objectives

Scientific and technical objectives were:

1. To develop an integrated approach to the measurement of the whole journey passenger experience that takes into account human (physiological, perceptual, cognitive, sensory and affective) socio-economic, cultural, geographic and environmental factors.
2. To assess the costs of ‘inaccessible transport’ for different sectors of society (such as those from low income groups, rural communities, the elderly, disabled and those with lower levels of literacy).
3. To assess the extent to which the measurement of the passenger experience can be used to drive innovation and attention to transport quality from the customer’s perspective in the transport industry.
4. To evaluate the passengers experience from different regions of Europe and to support the integration of regional transport networks into an European transport network.
5. To facilitate the harmonization of travel behaviour research and analysis across European Union Member States.