Abstract:This report describes a study into the effects of advanced transit information on commuters' propensity to use transit. A computer-aided telephone interview was designed and conducted in Sacramento and San Jose areas in California. The study investigates the most important information items that non-transit users seek to have about the transit services available to them, then using a customized stated preference choice sets, these commuters' likelihood to use transit was explored. The study looks also into commuters' perceptions of transit, and transit users' satisfaction with the information currently available to them.

The results indicated that about 38 percent of the respondents who currently do not use transit might consider transit in case the appropriate information is available. Analysis using the stated preference technique and targeting this group of respondents indicated a promising effect of transit information systems in encouraging transit ridership in case the desired information is provided. Using binary logit and ordered probit modeling formulations produced results that show the significant effect of several commute and social economic characteristics (such as travel time, carpooling and age) on the propensity of using transit.