TRA-930: TRANSIT USER BEHAVIOUR IN RESPONSE TO SUBWAY SERVICE DISRUPTION

Disruption of transit service is a common occurrence in many cities around the world, and these incidents may have serious impacts on the transit user’s journey. Transit user behavioural response under disrupted service conditions, specifically how transit riders choose among available mode options to complete their trips, is not well understood. Mode choice studies often lack proper consideration of travel time variability and uncertainty in such situations, neither do they fully account for some options considered by users, such as waiting, taking a shuttle bus, or cancelling the trip. This study aims to investigate transit user mode choice in response to peak hour rapid transit service disruption in the City of Toronto, incorporating such factors as the type of disruption, stage of the passenger’s trip (pre-trip or en-route), weather conditions, and uncertainty of delay duration. A joint Revealed Preference (RP) and Stated Preference (SP) survey is designed where the RP part gathers information on the respondent’s actual response to the most recent service disruption while the SP part solicits the respondent’s responses under a set of hypothetical service disruption scenarios. A transit trip planner tool is developed to generate alternative transit mode and path options to avoid the disrupted segment. The survey methodology is discussed including the scope, experimental design, survey sample design, survey instrument design, and survey implementation. The data collected would be used to develop econometric models to understand the potential effects of different factors on the choice making behaviour of transit users under conditions of service interruption