Understanding the relationship between voting preferences for public transport and perceptions and preferences for bus rapid transit versus light rail

Abstract

Despite the plea for a rational debate on the role of alternative public transport modes, there is often great resistance to some options on essentially ideological and emotional grounds. The aim of this paper is to understand the key perceived barriers that mitigate against support for BRT in the presence of LRT options, and the way in which these differ between users and non users of public transport. We develop best-worst preference experiments, one associated with design characteristics, and the other with service descriptions associated with BRT and LRT, and an experiment that focuses on voting preferences. The main focus of this paper is establishing a mapping between the voting preference evidence and the relative support for bus (BRT) and LRT. A survey of residents of six capital cities in Australia provides the empirical context.