Style versus Service? An Analysis of User Perceptions of Transit Stops and Stations in Los Angeles

A typical door-to-door trip on public transit entails walking from one’s origin to a bus stop or train station, waiting for one’s vehicle to arrive, boarding the vehicle, traveling in the vehicle, alighting from the vehicle, perhaps transferring to another vehicle, and then walking to one’s final destination. Transit travelers expend a great deal of time and energy on out-of-vehicle walking and waiting, which plays greatly into their perceived burden of transit travel. Despite the importance of out-of-vehicle transit travel, the in-vehicle travel experience has tended to garner the lion’s share of attention from transit managers and researchers. Accordingly, this study is concerned with the out-of-vehicle segments of transit travel and with ways to reduce the perceived burdens of walking, waiting, and transferring to improve users’ experience at transit stops and stations. Using a wait/walk/transfer impedance framework developed in an earlier phase of this research, we designed and administered a survey to 749 transit users at 12 transit stops and stations around metropolitan Los Angeles. The paper's analysis of the survey data finds that the most important determinant of user satisfaction with a transit stop or station has no direct connection to the physical characteristics of the facility – instead, frequent, reliable service in an environment of personal safety that matters most to riders. In other words, most transit users would prefer short, predictable waits for buses and trains in a safe, if simple or even dreary, environment over long waits for late-running vehicles in even the most elaborate and attractive transit station, especially if they fear for their safety. While perhaps surprising to those focused on the influence of urban design on travel behavior, these findings should be heartening to transit managers focused on delivering quality transit service to users. Though comfortable, informative and attractive stops and stations can indeed make traveling by public transit more agreeable, what passengers want most is safe, frequent, and reliable service.