Arrival characteristics of passengers intending to use public transport

A public transport passenger trip consists of stages. Some stages are beyond control of the passenger, such as late running of the service or the travel time of the service. An intending passenger is in control of the time at which they arrive to meet (or wait for) their service; that is the number of minutes that the passenger arrives at the platform or bus stop prior to the expected arrival of their intended service. This paper reports on observations and surveying of the arrival of intending passengers at train stations. Data collected included the arrival time of the passengers, the scheduled arrival time of the passengers' intended service, the passengers' expectation of when their intended service would arrive, the passengers' frequency of service use, and passengers' reporting of the level of anxiety they experience for missing their intended service. The research investigates how people structure their time around a public transport passenger trip and demonstrates what intending passengers consider a reasonable waiting time based on recorded behaviours. The research findings are important to the scheduling of public transport services, implications of variability in public transport service reliability, and public transport performance measurement.