Preference heterogeneity towards the importance of transfer facility attributes at metro stations in Kolkata

The present study reports an investigation on the effects of socioeconomic and trip characteristics of metro commuters on their perceived importance towards transfer facility attributes with reference to Kolkata city in India. A five-point Likert-type ordinal scale rating survey was designed to collect responses along with socioeconomic and trip characteristics by intercepting metro commuters. The database was analysed using Mann-Whitney U test and Wilcoxon W test to investigate the effects of socioeconomic and trip characteristic of commuters on their perceived importance towards transfer facility attributes. Relative to an Identified Distribution Integral Transformation (RIDIT) analysis was performed to derive the rankings of transfer facility attributes as perceived by different commuter groups based on 'trip rate', 'gender', and 'car ownership'. Heterogeneity found in perceived importance and derived rankings of transfer facility attributes with respect to the 'trip rate' of the metro commuters, and between 'captive riders' and 'choice riders' while no such variation is observed between 'male' and 'female' commuters. The findings of the present study will primarily help the policy makers and facilities planners to formulate improvement strategies for transfer facilities at metro stations giving due consideration to the requirements of different commuter groups based on their socioeconomic and trip characteristics.