Definition of user groups applying Ward's method

:Requirement of passengers regarding their journeys and journey planners were the topic of this paper. First a framework of aspects for multimodal journey planners was created, where passengers were divided into 5 user groups. In order to receive real answers a survey was conducted. Considering the main aspects (route planning, booking and payment, handled data, complementary information, supplementary information) the established user groups showed no significant differences. The connection of single aspects was investigated using correlation analysis. Therefore the need of the creation of new user groups has been arisen. Ward method, as a hierarchical clustering method, was used to create groups, where the variance within the groups is minimized. The clustering algorithm was implemented in MatLab environment working with the original survey answers. As a result 5 new user groups were presented with special features, as alternative journey planning group, visualization on the map group, dynamic data group, no mobile payment interested group, no WiFi interested group. These groups showed significant difference regarding the main aspects. Using the new group allocation, passengers were categorized according to real requirement into homogeneous user groups. In order to apply the results of the Ward user groups, the evaluation of multimodal journey planners was also performed, where requirements of the user groups were taken into account during the process