Investigating heterogeneity of bus users’ preferences through discrete choice modeling

In this paper we investigate differences in bus passengers’ perceptions about transitservice quality through the calibration of different discrete choice logit models (multinomial,mixed and latent class models) in which users’ heterogeneity is introduced.The application of these different approaches to the same experimental context isproposed, highlighting the findings emerging from the analysis. The importance ofinvestigating passengers’ perceptions can help transit operators and transportationplanners prepare better investment plans; therefore, to adopt tools able to take intoaccount the heterogeneity among users is very important for obtaining as reliable aspossible service quality measures. We find that there are observed and unobservedgroups of users who perceive service quality differently, and that there is heterogeneityamong users in perceiving certain bus service characteristics.