Marketing measures in the context of public transport

This paper aims to provide some insights into the acceptability of marketing measures in public transport. In a stated choice experiment respondents were asked to evaluate three different measures: fare adjustment, seat guarantee, and extra service. All marketing measures were specified in combination with a certain time period and number of bus lines. More than 560 respondents living in the region of North-Holland participated in the experiment. The choices were analyzed using binary logit models. The results indicate that respondents are not very sensitive to differences in time period, number of bus lines, and the distinguished levels of the marketing measures. The most important measure is fare adjustment. Some differences between public transport users and non-users are found. Public transport users prefer a fare adjustment on one specific bus line most. Respondents who do not use public transport prefer a 100 percent seat guarantee during 12 months on all bus lines.