The dilemma of demand-responsive transport services in rural areas: Conflicting expectations and weak user acceptance

Abstract

In the passenger transport sector, strategies to reduce carbon emissions engage politics, practitioners, and scientists worldwide. Inter alia, increasing the use of public transport is a vital part of the current strategies. In the EU, 29% of citizens live in rural areas, and the provision of traditional public transport in these areas is difficult and, more importantly, inefficient, further complicating its establishment. In this context, demand-responsive transport (DRT) services are presented as a possible solution. Nevertheless, scientific investigations in this domain are sparse and have fallen short of socio-scientific approaches to explain and increase the user acceptance of DRT. Against this backdrop, this systematic literature review presents an analysis of 231 articles on DRT, and a systematic identification of articles with socio-scientific approaches that were subjected to a content analysis (n = 44). This article (1) creates an overview of the development of the research field with a particular focus on user-oriented research, (2) detects a threefold, conflicting performance expectancy towards the services that complicates their success, and (3) identifies a discrepancy between the perception of DRT services and the empirical design of studies. It concludes by systemizing existing research gaps regarding performance expectation, user focus and rurality, and proposes implications for policymakers and practitioners.