Estimating the Effectiveness of Paratransit Service in Guwahati City

Abstract

The Intermediate Public Transport (IPT) operates as feeder for the public transportation in larger cities. It acts as a key means of mass transportation in medium to small sized municipalities. The IPT contributes to mobility improvement, however the unchecked growth of IPT leads to the increasing traffic congestion and air pollution, and reduced safety. For a sustainable transport infrastructure, efficient IPT system is needed. To manage efficiently, the performance needs to be assessed by taking account of service perception, community perceptions and the level of satisfaction for passengers. In this study the performance of IPT in Guwahati, India was measured utilizing Benchmarks employing seven Key Performance Indicators (KPI). Level of service (LOS) scale spanning from LOS 1 (best service quality) to LOS 4 (worst service quality) is designed to evaluate the performance of the KPIs. IPT of Guwahati has been found to satisfactory journey speed and comfort with LOS1. Average time to wait, availability of IPT and GPS facilities fall under LOS 3, LOS 4 and LOS 4 categories are the performance areas that need to be addressed. With service level LOS 2 average number of passengers in IPT and safety of IPT performs satisfactorily.KeywordsAccessibilityKPISafetyAverage number of passengersComfort