Transport market research: include the trips your passenger survey misses

A faster bus into work can be a poor commuting offer if there is no usable bus home. Yet a survey of the morning service may hear mainly from people whose day already fits the timetable. The people who cannot make that journey may never be on board to answer.

Transport market research should help an operator or authority distinguish those questions before commissioning a study. Understanding current passenger experience is valuable. Choosing a new service also requires evidence about the trips people need to make, including journeys the existing network does not serve.

Start with a travel day, rather than a preferred departure

Consider a fictional operator choosing between a direct peak service and a connecting service with a later return. The operator supplies feasible timetables, stops, transfer arrangements and fares for both proposals. It can develop one of them. Neither is a measured service or an approved real-world transport plan.

For one proposed weekday commute, the relevant scheduled journeys are:

These are invented comparison conditions. Both proposals use the same total return fare for this trip, including the connection where required. The operator supplies the complete transfer and ticket conditions; the table does not establish actual connection reliability or operating performance.

In the illustration, Priya works from 08:30 to 17:30, with a ten-minute walk between the district stop and her workplace. Either outward journey gets her there before work. The direct return leaves before her shift ends. The connecting return could fit the stated day: she could reach its stop at 17:40 for the 17:50 departure.

Calling the direct bus faster leaves Priya's return unresolved. She might use another mode, arrange a lift or reject that commuting offer. Do not silently supply a later bus that the operator has not proposed.

Now consider Jamie, who works from 08:30 to 17:00 with the same illustrative walk. The direct return can fit that day. A transfer and later arrival home may offer Jamie little benefit. These two constructed situations establish no audience proportions or preferred route; they show why the study needs the complete travel day beside each answer.

Include the people who cannot currently make the trip

An onboard survey can investigate the journey passengers are experiencing. Transport Focus's 2024 Your Bus Journey report describes each response as an individual journey, with passengers invited to participate while making that journey. That is a useful, explicit connection between the answer and its experience.

For the fictional route decision, the commissioning question reaches beyond those observed trips. Include people in the intended travel market who currently use another mode, travel at a different time or cannot make the relevant trip. Do not ask them to rate an onboard experience they have not had. Investigate their travel requirements and responses to the proposed service instead.

Define the market around actual origins, destinations, days and arrival or departure constraints. “Local residents” is too broad if the decision concerns a particular employment district. Current route users are too narrow if the proposed service is intended to make a different working day possible.

Ask how those requirements are established. A reported work schedule, a travel diary and a boarding record supply different information. Keep the source and date attached. A person's account of what a colleague could do does not establish that colleague's travel day.

Our research sampling guide explains how the selected base changes what a result can describe. Here, separate feedback from current passengers from investigation of prospective travel. A high satisfaction score for the first group cannot establish that the proposed timetable serves the second.

Ask for a service recommendation with its conditions attached

Show complete, understandable journeys for each feasible proposal. Include getting to the stop, transfers, the return, ticket validity and relevant alternatives. The operator must supply what exists and what it could deliver. Participants should not have to invent missing connection conditions to make an attractive route work.

Check how people understand each option, then investigate their choice and its explanation. For Priya's day, the important distinction is the return after 17:30. For Jamie's, the direct trip may already fit. Other travelers could face a different access or transfer constraint. Establish those differences rather than assuming every person makes the illustrated walk at the same pace.

The readout should keep each travel day together. Do not turn separate outward and return preferences into a combined itinerary that neither proposal supplies. Two journeys made by one commuter also do not become two independent commuters supporting the service.

A useful recommendation might identify which defined travel situations a candidate serves, which remain unserved and which supplied condition drives rejection. If a later direct departure is a promising revision, operations needs to establish whether it can be offered before the researchers compare it. More persuasive timetable wording cannot create that departure.

Report the relevant bases and the evidence behind their share of the intended market. Equal numbers of illustrative or generated responses do not establish equal numbers of travelers. Preference among a selected group is not a passenger-volume forecast. Our concept testing guide covers comparing proposals; transport planning and demand forecasting retain their own inputs and methods.

Choose different work when the service already fits

If adequate current evidence establishes the intended trips and both proposals are complete, move directly to their grounded comparison. There is no need to repeat broad discovery merely because a new timetable is being considered.

If the existing timetable fits but passengers cannot find or interpret it, the immediate question may concern information or the journey through the service. Our customer journey research guide follows actual attempts and the conditions behind failure. When the question concerns satisfaction with journeys already taken, our customer satisfaction research guide addresses that commission.

Keep operating evidence separate throughout. Timetables and descriptions do not establish actual punctuality, transfer success, available capacity, physical accessibility or safety. Appropriate operational assessment, observed journeys and service trials need to investigate those conditions. A proposed journey can be considered without ever being completed; the study should preserve that distinction.

Explore your transport study with Sapien

At Sapien, our team builds data-grounded simulated audiences, runs research and helps interpret the findings. Bring the defined travel market, feasible service alternatives and existing passenger or customer evidence. We can explore how a grounded audience understands each proposal, how reactions differ across relevant travel situations and what the explanations suggest for development, with findings in an interactive report.

Establish what evidence can ground the intended travelers before interpreting the comparison. Keep modeled responses distinct from actual journeys, and keep engineering, network appraisal and observed service performance with the sources able to establish them. The study can help clarify which proposition to investigate next without turning consideration into ridership or revenue.

Book a demo to explore how a Sapien study could help your team develop its next transport service.