This post is a synopsis of a presentation made by Ms Leah Wright at the Conference on the Economy (COTE) 2019 conference, hosted by The Department of Economics at The University of the West Indies. Transportation plays an important role in shaping a country's economy. When the transportation is efficient, it contributes to economic and social growth. On the other hand, an inadequate transportation system, particularly in terms of reliability, mobility and capacity, can lead to severe economic costs and negatively influence the overall quality of life. Needless to say, the state of a country's public transportation system, says a great deal Public Transportation is heavily underused, especially in Developing countries and Small Island Developing States (SIDS). This is mainly because public transit struggles to provide travellers with the convenience and flexibility that private cars are capable of. The autocentric nature of most countries, including Trinidad, has lead to the neglect of the public transportation system, causing the deterioration of the quality of public transit. Thus, many people who live within these regions have a negative connotation with public transit. Sustainability is currently an overarching goal for many governments. Policy makers have found that public transportation is a more sustainable alternative because the focus is on moving people and not vehicles. This renewed interest in public transportation has influenced improvements in the area. Most of the focus has been improving the vehicular characteristics, such as travel time. However, this is not the full extent of the public transportation system and little focus has been placed on the type and quality of transfer stations. As we know, the public transportation system in Trinidad is dominated by para-transit modes. The system is also set up in such a way that a single public transportation journey consists of at least 2 different modes, and these transfer stations are usually not within the same vicinity. These areas are generally uncovered and roadside. Furthermore, these transfer stations are typically seen as uncomfortable and unsafe to traverse at certain times. These problems add to the issues with public transportation, making it more difficult to get drivers to leave their cars and use public transportation. This research aims to address the consequences of poor quality public transportation which includes the need for many transfers in Trinidad. We will be looking at the perception of the public transportation to travellers and the impact of transfer time, both perceived and actual, on mode choice. A (household) travel behaviour survey was conducted in January 2018 and consisted of approximately 500 individuals. Most of the sample had a household income between $9,000 and $22,000 TT, and consisted of mainly 3-person households. Though approximately 97% of the sample reported having at least one car in the household, roughly 80% indicated using private car in their daily journey. Though the sample was relatively homogeneous, we were still able to show that private car users and public transportation users had very different travel patterns. Private car users predominantly had 2 trips in their work tours, while public transportation users had up to 7 trips in their tours (A tour is defined as movement to and from the same location, and in the case we used 'home' as base). This high number of trips in PT tours is due to the walking trips within tours. For e.g the figure below shows a typical home to work journey for both private car users and public transportation users. For a private car user, that journey consists of leaving home, getting in their vehicle, driving to work, and parking within such close proximity to their workplace that walking was negligible. However, for a public transportation user, the same home to work journey consist of (at a minimum) leaving home, walking to a public transportation stand, waiting on the driver, traversing to work (with possible stops in between), reaching the next public transportation stand, then walking to work. Thus it was found that the private car users had multipurpose tours, where a stop indicated a change in purpose, while public transportation tours were multi-stop. That is, a single purpose, with numerous stops usually indicating a change in mode. From the data we were able to determine the mean in-vehicle time (IVT) and the mean transfer time for each type of user. Excluding the PH taxi, the transfer time for the remaining public transportation modes were an average of 35% of the total trip time, compared to 0% for the private car There is also a large disparity between the perceived IVT and actual IVT, where the perceived time is almost twice the actual time in some cases, as shown below. These large differences in perceived versus actual, show the very low perception of the public transportation system by car users. We were also able to determine the actual and perceived transfer times for each type of user, and mode. It was found that for most modes, private car users overestimated the transfer times and public transportation users underestimated the transfer times. Surprisingly, for the PTSC Bus, it seemed like the private car users had more faith in the bus than regular public transit users. In conclusion, this study highlighted some important points about the public transportation system in Trinidad. To begin with, the actual transfer time for PT users is significant. Furthermore, it is that is perceived to be worse by car users, the people we are trying to encourage to use public transit.
A poor transfer station indicates a poor quality public transportation system. This means, regardless of how efficient the public transit mode is, if the transfer station is seen as poor quality, the entire system is deemed unfit. Not only does this discourage car users from using public transit, but it makes the private care more attractive to the average public transit user, increasing auto use and inevitably increasing the time spent in the congestion. This supports the vicious cycle of continued neglect and deterioration of the public transit, and the quality of life of those captive public transportation users. Furthermore, the issues of the "first mile" and "last mile", where most transfers occur, need to be addressed by different policies to help change the negative perception of public transportation and increase sustainability of the overall transportation system.
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January 2021
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