Users’ preferences towards innovative and conventional public transport

The potential in urban environments of innovative public transport systems based on automation is being investigated within the CityMobil project (2006-2011). The Rome demonstration is implementing a cybernetic transport system (CTS) to connect the new fair with the car park. For this, a demand study has been carried out with a view to assessing the attitudes of the users towards innovative and conventional systems. A stated preference survey has been designed based on two questionnaires: one for the choice between foot and CTS, one for the choice between foot and a minibus. The responses to the two questionnaires have been pooled and a logit model has been calibrated using the joint maximum likelihood. The results are indicative of the relative preference of the users for innovation, as the demand for CTS is higher than the demand for minibus, the scenario and level-of-service attributes being the same. The hypothesis of heterogeneity across individuals of the attitude towards innovation is tested using a mixed logit formulation. Finally, the variation of preferences with the characteristics of the users, including gender, age and education, is explored.