Accessible Transportation Services: Customer Travel Satisfaction

Canada’s population is rapidly ageing. One sector that is important to older adults’ quality of life is transportation. Indeed, the lack of safe, reliable, and accessible transportation can be a barrier to healthy ageing and increases people’s risk of social isolation. For many older adults, driving is no longer an option, and fixed-route public transports is not accessible. Recognizing this need, many North American cities have created paratransit programs, which provide individualized rides to certain segments of the population that are scheduled ahead of time. In Hamilton, the Hamilton Street Railway (HSR) runs two programs for people with disabilities, both of which fall under their Accessible Transportation Services (ATS): DARTS, a bookable, door-to-door, accessible, shared ride service) and the taxi script program (subsidized taxi fares). Paratransit services, however, are understudied, and within this small body of work even fewer studies have considered users’ experiences. Given this, this research will explore paratransit users’ travel satisfaction through a mixed methods analysis of a survey distributed to ATS customers in Hamilton, Ontario. Results will shed light on how to enhance paratransit user satisfaction in Hamilton and beyond.

Faculty Supervisor:

Lea Ravensbergen;Darren Scott;Bruce Newbold;Lea Ravensbergen

Student:

Partner:

City of Hamilton

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Public administration

University:

McMaster University

Program: