Abstract
Public transit authorities have enhanced the travel experience to promote ridership and customer loyalty. Previous studies about satisfaction and loyalty of transit riders, however, give less attention to out-of-vehicle environments such as walking/biking routes, transfer comfort, and traffic and crime safety conditions. The first-mile and last-mile problem—distance traveled before and after using transit—is a well-known barrier of transit use, but an empirical study about how people experience it is lacking.Thus, this study aims to explore how transit riders experience out-of-vehicle environments—access, transfer, and egress—and how their experience is related to overall satisfaction and loyalty to transit service. We conducted a questionnaire survey of people (n = 445) living in areas served by the Utah Transit Authority and analyzed the responses through an Importance-Satisfaction analysis and a path analysis, a type of structural equation modeling. A descriptive analysis demonstrates complex first-mile travel patterns: driving is the most common mode to start a transit-involved trip (68.5%), and one-third of transit riders transfer more than once before riding on a transit (e.g., driving → walking → transit). Results from the Importance-Satisfaction analysis highlight both traffic and crime safety concerns at transit stops and walking routes as a critical out-of-vehicle element most in need of improvement. A path analysis result confirms that out-of-vehicle environments—in particular, safety and transfer experience—influence customer satisfaction and loyalty more than in-vehicle and system-related factors do. This paper concludes with practical suggestions for multiple agencies (e.g., public transit, transportation, and urban planning), including urban design strategies, land use-transit integration, and multi-modal integration.
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