Valuing Service Quality Impacts In Transport Planning

Travelers tend to place a high value on qualitative factors such as convenience, comfort, security and prestige. However, conventional transport planning practices tend to focus on quantitative impacts and undervalue qualitative impacts. This paper describes ways to evaluate qualitative impacts. Improved travel convenience and comfort tend to reduce unit travel time costs and so are equivalent in value to increased travel speed. Improved analysis of qualitative factors can expand the range of impacts and options considered in transport evaluation, leading to better planning decisions. It is particularly important for efforts to encourage use of alternative modes such as walking, cycling and public transit. A condensed version of this paper was presented at the 87th Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting, January 2008 Build for Comfort, Not Just Speed Victoria Transport Policy Institute 1 I ain’t go no diamonds, I ain’t go no boat, But I do have love that’s gonna fire your soul, Cause I’m built for comfort, I ain’t built for speed. But I got everything, all a good women needs. —Willie Dixon Introduction Virtually every new automobile can exceed normal legal speed limits. Consumers choose vehicles based primarily on convenience and comfort (remote door openers, navigation systems, sound systems and cupholders) rather than maximum speed. In response, vehicle manufactures are continually improving their product’s service quality. In contrast, walking, cycling and public transit are generally provided at basic service levels, just adequate to meet the minimal needs of dependent users (people who lack alternatives), rather than to attract sophisticated consumers who demand high quality products. As a result, as people become wealthier they tend to shift from alternative modes to driving. This is unfortunate because surveys indicate that many people would prefer to drive less and rely more on alternative modes, provided they have adequate service quality (Handy, Weston and Mokhtarian 2005). Walking, cycling and public transit travel tend to increase significantly when their service quality is improved (“Success Stories,” VTPI 2008). Satisfying latent demand for higher quality travel options can provide various benefits:  To current users, who are directly better off from increased comfort and convenience.  To people who shift from driving to alternative modes in response to service improvements.  To travelers and employers from more productive use of travel time (working or resting).  To other road users, from reduced congestion and accident risk.  To society, from reductions in external costs such as pollution and parking subsidies.  Due to increased efficiency in the provision of alternative modes, since they often experience scale economies (for example, as walking increases the cost of providing facilities per pedestrian-mile declines, and as public transit ridership increases service frequency and coverage can expand and load factors tend to rise which reduces the cost per passenger-mile). These benefits are increasing due to factors such as aging population, increasing congestion, rising fuel costs, urbanization, increasing health and environmental concerns, and shifting consumer preferences. In general, as consumers become more affluent their demand for service quality increases. Failing to serve this demand reduces consumer benefits and reduces transport system efficient by reducing use of alternative modes. Described differently, transport planning is increasingly applying a marketing paradigm, in which travelers are considered customers with various needs and preferences, rather than just objects to be moved around. This type of planning uses surveys and behavior studies to identify consumer preferences, and develops goods and services that respond to those demands, often involving services targeting specific types of users, such as express commuter bus services and walking improvements around schools. Build for Comfort, Not Just Speed Victoria Transport Policy Institute 2 Table 1 Examples of Service Quality Improvements (VTPI, 2008) Walking Cycling Public Transit More and better sidewalks and paths Pedestrian shortcuts More crosswalks Traffic calming Streetscaping Comfort features, such as shade trees Bike path and lane improvements Bike parking and storage Clothes changing facilities Education and promotion More comfortable vehicles Reduced crowding Nicer stations Better user information Improved security Marketing and promotion There are many possible ways to improve the quality of alternative modes. Current planning practices generally undervalue of such improvements when measuring impacts and benefits. However, current planning practices tend to undervalue these impacts. Transport system evaluation focuses on quantitative factors (speed, operating costs, and traffic fatality rates) while undervaluing qualitative factors (convenience, comfort and prestige). This results in a less diverse transport system than is optimal. Tremendous resources are often invested to increase travel speeds, for example, to build new highways, rail lines and bridges that provide more direct travel to destinations; to expand congested roads to reduce delays; and to improve transit facilities to increase bus and rail travel speeds. These travel time savings are the main benefit of many transportation improvements. Most travel models and economic evaluation methods assign the same travel time value, regardless of service quality. There is usually no adjustment to reflect traveler convenience, comfort or productivity. Yet, for most applications a reduction in unit travel time costs (cents per minute or dollars per hour) is equivalent in travel time (minutes or hours of travel). For example, a transit service improvement that, by increasing rider comfort, reduces travel time unit costs 20% can be considered equivalent to a 20% increase in transit travel speeds, both in terms of the system’s ability to attract travelers and the monetized value of the improvement. Yet, most transportation evaluation models only recognize travel speed, they are insensitive to service quality factors. More accurate evaluation of transport service quality can provide many benefits:  It allows service quality improvements to be valued. For example, current evaluation practices would place a high value on a project that increases travel speeds by 20%, but would place little or no benefit on a project that, by improving the convenience and comfort of walking, cycling or transit travel, reduces travel time unit costs by 20%, although they provide the same economic benefit.  It increases the range of potential transport improvement options that can be considered. For example, improving transit service convenience and comfort (better user information, more convenient payment systems, nicer waiting areas, less crowded buses, etc.) may increase ridership at a lower cost than travel speed improvements achieved by grade separation.  It is progressive and equitable since it increases service quality for disadvantaged people.  It helps identify when consumers would willingly pay for higher quality service. For example, travelers may sometimes be willing to pay extra for walking and cycling improvement, or higher quality transit services. Build for Comfort, Not Just Speed Victoria Transport Policy Institute 3  Since discretionary travelers (people who have the option of driving) tend to be particularly sensitive to service quality, considering service quality impacts helps identify opportunities to achieve mode shifts, vehicle traffic reductions and associated benefits.  It reflects sustainability principles, which emphasize development (qualitative improvements) over growth (quantitative improvements). Traveling At Good Speed: Transportation Policy Shouldn’t Be Reduced To Average Commuting Times. Alex Marshall, Governing Magazine, August 2009 (www.governing.com/column/traveling-good-speed) Years ago, I drove 35 minutes each day from Virginia Beach to Norfolk to a job as a schoolteacher. Because I lived blocks from a freeway and the school was blocks from an off ramp, I was able to drive at 60 mph almost the entire way. Not a bad commute—but a tiring one. When you drive at high speed on a freeway, you need to pay attention or you may kill someone, yourself included. Now I live in Brooklyn, and commute 45 minutes to my office in Manhattan. This involves a 15-minute walk to the subway, a five-minute wait for the train, a 20-minute subway ride, plus a five-minute walk to work. This is longer than my old 35-minute car commute but is less tiring. I enjoy the walk. I can read or watch TV on my iPhone while on the subway—or talk to strangers, which is something I enjoy. I make this comparison to point out that, when it comes to transportation, time is an elastic, subjective, almost mystical thing. One minute spent traveling one way is not the same as another. Yet we seldom acknowledge this. This squishy side of transportation has little place in serious policy discussions at city council tables and in legislative chambers. It isn’t easy to start talking about how transportation feels. Instead, policy makers often present transportation as if it can be effectively summarized in miles-per-hour, average commuting times, cost-per-passenger, or capacity figures. This is unfortunate because how a transport system feels determines how and whether it is used, as well as its longterm potential. It’s up to mayors, legislators and planning directors to find ways to talk about these softer sides without blushing. To jump-start that discussion, here are some more examples of how my transportation experience varies: Sometimes I bike to work. This is actually shorter in time than the subway, but it’s qualitatively much different. I arrive invigorated from the challenge of urban cycling (unfortunately, it is dangerous) while also physically tired. And, I have to take weather into consideration. Then there’s walking. I’ve never walked to work, but I sometimes walk part of the way, say a mile. Walking 20 blocks in a crowded city is fun. But let’s say I lived in a typical suburban city. I wouldn’t choose to walk a mile along a suburban arterial with cars whizzing by me, even if I covered the same distance in the same amount of time. Travel between cities offers qualitative differences as well. Plane travel seems to have become a series of lines that one waits in, broken up by small quantities of actually flying. Train travel, if available and good, can offer unbroken hours for sustained concentration. Driving for hours in a car between cities, with or without company, can be good or bad depending on temperament, one’s physical size and the quality of one’s stereo. Speaking of stereos, years ago I did a story as a reporter for the Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk called “Drive Time.” It was a counter-intuitive story about the guilty pleasure many people experienced while commuting to work because it was often the only time they had to themselves. If they had young children, it was often the only time they had to listen to music or simply to sit quietly. Even being stuck in traffic wasn’t so bad, particularly if they had a nice car. Quality matters, that’s clear. My 35-minute commute to Norfolk was in my aunt’s old 1973 Ford LTD that I had bought from her. Not a bad car, but a Jaguar might have eased my way. I love train travel, but in the early 1980s, I hated boarding the slow, uncomfortable and crowded trains in Spain, where I was living at the time. The country was still recovering from decades of dictatorship, and its infrastructure was poor. From this, I learned that we need comfort and confidence not just in the vehicle we are seated in but in the wider context for that vehicle. There is no objective way to pronounce that one way of travel is better than another. Transportation, or at least one’s experience of it, is subjective. Ultimately, it depends on what you like. But if policy makers want to push one form of transportation over another, they’d do well to consider making that form of travel a primo experience. Build for Comfort, Not Just Speed Victoria Transport Policy Institute 4 Serving Sophisticated, Affluent Consumers Modern, affluent consumers willingly pay extra for high quality goods and services: they often purchase brand name clothes, bottled water and organic produce, although cheaper alternatives are available. When choosing a vehicle they often pay extra for features such as invehicle navigation systems, better sound systems and optional safety devices. They sometimes pay extra for more convenient parking or even for better roads (such as a toll road). Similarly, commercial airline passengers are often pay significantly more for first-class service that offers increased convenience, comfort and prestige (nicer airport waiting areas, larger seats, personal service) although it does not significantly increase travel speed or reduce delay. Other transport modes offer fewer consumer options. Walkers can purchase better shoes and cyclists can purchase better bikes, but cannot individually purchase better sidewalks or paths. Public transit travelers must generally accept whatever level of service is available; individual transit passengers generally cannot purchase a nicer waiting area, uncrowded vehicles or more convenient user information. This puts these modes at a competitive disadvantage compared with automobile and air travel which provide service quality options that respond to consumer demands. This occurs, in part, because most components of automobile and air travel are privately supplied, while all components of public transit are publicly supplied, as indicated in Figure 1. Decisions that affect transit service quality are made primarily through public planning and budgeting processes. Table 2 Who Provides Components of Various Modes Automobile Air Travel Walk/Bike Public Transit Path/Road/Rails/Airspace Public Public Public Public Vehicle Private Private Private (shoes & bikes) Public Terminals/Parking Mixed Mixed Mixed Public (stations & stops) This table compares the provision of infrastructure for different modes. Automobile, air, walking and cycling use private vehicles and mostly private terminals and parking facilities. All public transit components are publicly provided so their quality depends on public planning decisions. Currently, few qualitative factors are incorporated in transport modeling and economic evaluation. They may be considered at other stages, such as public input and project design, but convenience and comfort factors are generally ignored in models used to predict travel impacts and economic valuation. As a result, alternative mode convenience and comfort impacts tend to be undervalued, resulting in suboptimal planning decisions. Build for Comfort, Not Just Speed Victoria Transport Policy Institute 5 Ways To Incorporate Qualitative Factors Into Planning Factors such as traveler convenience and comfort can be measured using methods such as stated preference surveys (which ask people to value a particular option or impact) and revealed preference studies (which measure how people actually respond to an option or impact) (Forkenbrock and Weisbrod, 2001). This information can be incorporated into transport planning and project evaluation through level-of-service (LOS) ratings, and by adjusting travel time values to better reflect travel conditions as discussed below. Level-Of-Service Ratings Level-of-service ratings are grades from A (best) to F (worst) commonly used to evaluate travel conditions and identify problem areas. LOS ratings are easy to understand and use, and carry considerable weight in decision-making since they are so similar to school grades – nobody wants to receive a bad grade. Traffic engineers use roadway LOS ratings, which reflect volume-to-capacity ratios (which indicates if traffic volumes exceed a road’s optimal capacity) and average traffic delays. Level-ofservice (also called quality of service) ratings have recently been developed for other modes, including walking, cycling and public transit (FDOT, 2002; Phillips, Karachepone and Landis, 2001; Kittleson & Associates, 2003a and 2003b; “Multi-Modal LOS Indicators,” VTPI, 2008; Hensher, 2007). Table 3 lists factors that can be incorporated into such ratings. These can be adjusted and calibrated to reflect specific needs, preferences and conditions. Table 3 Level-of-Service Factors (“Multi-Modal LOS Indicators,” VTPI, 2008) Transit Vehicles Transit Waiting Areas Walking and Cycling Availability (daily service hours). Frequency (trips per hour or day). Speed (particularly relative to automobile travel). Reliability (how well service follows schedules). Comfort (whether passengers have a seat and adequate space). Stop/station quality. Fare payment convenience. Security (feelings of safety). Affordability (user costs relative to incomes, and other travel options). User information availability. Cleanliness and aesthetics. Ease of access (walking conditions) to transit stops and stations. Security. Shade and weather protection. Lighting quality. Seat comfort and crowding. Cleanliness and aesthetics. Services (such as washrooms and refreshments). Quality of sidewalks, paths and bike lanes. Quality of crosswalks. Separation from vehicle traffic. Adjacent motor vehicle traffic volumes and speeds. Topography (inclines).