User satisfaction surveys were conducted with transport users and professionals for the four use cases of the project, online and in person by the DIAMOND research team between February to October 2020. Overall, responses were collected from about 2,000 responders from different countries (France, Spain – Catalonia Region, Poland and Ireland). Each questionnaire included around 50 questions related to satisfaction with respect to the service, employability conditions and inclusion.
The user satisfaction questionnaire responses were analysed through various statistical methods to identify possible differences in needs and perception of different kinds of transport services (railway, bike sharing and autonomous vehicles) when disaggregated in respect to individual and demographic features. In this post we summarize some main findings from the analysis.
Railway
For railway transport systems about 1,100 responses were collected at selected railway stations of services in Poland, Catalonia and Ireland. Significant gender differences emerged across the questionnaire, with gender showing relevance across many items. In particular across all data sets, women felt less satisfied around safety and security issues than men, and non-binary users even less so.
In all cases, a high variability was perceived on safety across stations. Catalan users from urban areas were more satisfied with safety than users from rural areas. In the Irish context, this pattern was the opposite.
Two factors that impacted accessibility and comfort were “travelling with dependents” and “having a chronic illness/disability”. For the Polish sample, caring responsibility was important for accessibility and comfort, whilst ethnicity was an influencing factor for safety and security. On the other hand, income was very relevant for the Catalan dataset.
In the Irish sample, the age group of 35-44 years was the most critical on the service provided, while in Catalonia, depending on the railway line travelling, older people were more critical. This discrepancy of results may be due to unique services provided to older citizens in Ireland, such as the free travel scheme, or to accessibility infrastructures and services provided by certain railway lines in Catalonia.
Autonomous vehicles
With regards to Autonomous vehicles, about 100 responses were collected, partly online and partly in the context of an experimental session in a simulator laboratory.
Women indicated a higher sensitivity towards safety, a greater need for accessibility and mobility with children in mind, and placing greater importance on energy efficiency. Furthermore, women showed a greater interest in performing simultaneous activities than men, especially women with children under 12. Keeping control of driving features emerged to be more important for women, and especially for women without children.
Bike sharing
For bike-sharing services about 400 responses were collected at selected docking stations in the metropolitan area of Paris.
Women felt less satisfied than men with accessibility and safety and security issues. For example, women were more concerned about the availability of safety equipment, transportation with children and safety at docking stations.
The user’s level of satisfaction was found to be positively related to age, with younger respondents (18-44 years) being less critical on bike-sharing systems than older respondents (45-74 years).
On general issues related to cycling, significant differences emerged related to gender, with women reporting higher concern. The perception of safety was linked to traffic speed: lower traffic predicted an increased perception of safety and, consequently, increased user satisfaction. Similarly, visibility and adequate lighting at docking stations predicted an increased sense of security and user satisfaction.
Employment
Concerning employment conditions, about 360 questionnaires were collected from transport operator employees with different roles and profiles from Poland, Catalonia and Ireland.
In general, gender was found to be a relevant predictor of employees’ perception related to organization inclusiveness, with women often having a lower level of satisfaction with some of the statements, such as balance between genders across occupations, levels and jobs in transport related to the context, and satisfaction with how the context employees living in supports fairness and inclusiveness of women in transport.
In the Polish dataset, income and environment were strongly correlated with organisational inclusive satisfaction. Other issues, such as affordable childcare services, did not emerge as concerns due to state funded provision of childcare.
In the Catalan dataset there were only a few gender differences, with women indicating less satisfaction with inclusion in the workplace; there were significant differences by job level/type and by whether respondents had children or not in regard to satisfaction with organisational inclusiveness.
In the Irish dataset, women expressed less satisfaction than men with corporate fairness and inclusivity, and a greater need for affordable childcare services and expenses/support for traveling to work.
