Travel Experience and Reasons for the Use and Nonuse of Local Public Transport: A Case Study within the Community Interregional Project SaMBA (Sustainable Mobility Behaviors in the Alpine Region)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This article completes an anonymous questionnaire to evaluate the LPT by people from different categories travelling to the hospital (students, employees, clients). A topic that is of considerable interests to research community. However, there are some issues that would mean that the paper would not have the impact that it ought to have. Here some comments and suggestions:

1. It is not clear that the research purpose and actual problems, such as reducing traffic congestion and improving bus sharing ratio.

2. The improvement strategies and suggestions should be put forward.

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for the suggestions on the basis of which we modified the article as follows: the purpose of the research and its relationship with the actual problem taken into consideration by Samba Project was clarified in the paragraph “the present study”, and practical suggestions for promoting the use of public transport were added in the conclusions.

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper collected 400 online questionnaires from the people travelling to and from the Hospital Centre in the Municipality of Monselice-Schiavonia. With the participants including users and non-users, The study showed that insufficient hourly coverage and accessibility of the service are the primary reasons for opting not to use LPT (Local Public Transport) and together with reliability and comfort, these factors contribute to user satisfaction with their travel experience. However, there are still some problems in the manuscript, which need to be revised to meet the requirements of publication.

The specific amendments are as follows:

1. In the Introduction, the authors need to reorganize the literature review. Certain factors affecting people's satisfaction with public transportation services are repeated in the review, resulting in unclear logic. Also, there is inadequate discussion of why it is important to study the reasons for using or not using LPT and the value of the study. How hospital travel-related experiences differ from other trips is also not explained.

2. In the Materials and Methods, as the authors have noted, the study was based on a sample of only 400 individuals. The authors need to provide a more comprehensive discussion of the representativeness of the study area, the representativeness of the study data, and add when the questionnaire data was collected. Also, there is a lack of detail on the processing of the data.

3. In the Results, this paper has a small sample size and only uses people's experiences related to hospital travel. In addition, this paper focuses on the reasons for using or not using LPT, whether owning a private car can influence people's use of LPT is not considered. So the applicability of the conclusions needs to be further discussed.

English needs further improvement.

Author Response

We thank the referee for the suggestions. The article has been modified as follows: 1) the introduction has been reorganized according to the Reviewer comments; 2) we have added the requested information, including a clarification on the size and representativeness of the sample; 3) however, the characteristics of the sample were included among the limitations of the study in the conclusions of the article together with a note on the applicability of the conclusions.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments:

It is an interesting topic to study “the use and non-use of local public transport”, However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the article considered the impact of fear of disease transmission as a factor. But has it considered the proportion of customers affected by the pandemic, which could potentially affect the credibility of the survey results? Also, this manuscript shows some points that needs to be improved as the comments below explains.

(1)   L30-L32: “individual and/or private means of transport gained an ever-growing popularity within high income countries, leading to a decrease in the use of public transport.” Does the causal relationship of this conclusion hold true, or is there any relevant research to support it?

(2)   L204: The article utilized an online survey that required 5-10 minutes to complete. How did the article address sampling bias and self-reporting bias?

(3)   L218-L219: Has there been consideration for the differences in the proportions of workers, customers, and students during the pandemic compared to normal times?

(4)   L230-L231: “this question split the respondents’ sample into three categories of users: workers, students, and customers.” During the pandemic, with the rapid increase in the number of patients, has there been consideration for any overlap among user categories?

(5)   Why does the sum of males and females in Table 1 not equal 100% and also includes age and user category, of course?

(6)   L322: “Bus users’ satisfaction with the LPT vs satisfaction with the car use in non-users of TPL.” Is it better to compare the satisfaction levels between users who have used both public and private transportation simultaneously, providing a comparative expression? Some users who exclusively use private transportation may be unaware of the existence of public transportation. Could this potentially result in a subconscious overestimation of satisfaction with private car usage?

(7)   Table 3 describes “Relations between quality for the travel experience and satisfaction with different characteristics of the LTP service” Has there been consideration for the interaction effects between each item?

(8)   L629: Does it make more sense to analyze both the proponents and opponents of sustainability policies when investigating the data, as the article previously described the population supporting sustainable policy and choosing LPT?

 Minor editing of English language required

Author Response

We thank the referee for the comments and suggestions provided. Regarding the data collection period and the possible consequences on the research results, we have provided a more detailed explanation in the article. The data was collected in the post-lockdown period of the pandemic, in which people could move freely and were requested to wear masks when travelling by public transport. Other data, not presented in this study, but collected as part of the SAMBA project of which the present research is part, give us indications on the number of passengers on the service before the pandemic and in the post-pandemic period. These data showed no relevant differences. Our hypothesis is that, since  the number of passengers travelling on the considered bus line is low in relation to the size of the vehicles and hence safety distances could be widely respected, the fears related to the possibility of contagion had a minimal impact on the decision to use this type of public transport. In fact, we have included the perception of safety about possible contagion among the reasons for use and non-use and these reasons proved less important than accessibility and hourly coverage. Based on such evidence, we believe that regardless of the post-lock down situation, the data relating to the motivations of users and non-users of the public service can be considered as good descriptors of the investigated phenomenon in the periods following the pandemic as well. However, we do not exclude that some more fragile patients who are more at risk of contagion may have preferred not to use the public service during the pandemic and in the following period.

1. The sentence has been modified in order to mitigate the causal link and indicate the only concomitance of the two phenomena.
2. The questionnaire (as specified in the revised version of the article, namely in the section concerning the method) was specifically designed so as not to require subjects to take too long to complete, with the aim of obtaining as many completed questionnaires as possible. The characteristics of the sample were better described in the methodology sections and the limits related to the scope of the results were discussed in the conclusions.
3. As better described in the revised version of the paragraph “the present study”, when the data collection was carried out, work and study activities at the hospital had already resumed with the same deadlines and methods as the pre-pandemic period, albeit with compliance with virus containment measures such as safety distances, hand disinfection and use of masks. Any differences in the number of hospital patients were not taken into consideration in the sampling for the reasons explained in the revised version of the methodology section.
4. Participants could give more than one answer regarding the reasons why they attended the hospital. Only two users who attended the hospital occasionally (1-2 times a month) for work also identified themselves as visitors (sometimes per year) (they were therefore classified as belonging to the hospital for work reasons), no other worker or student also declared themselves a patient or visitor.
5. The referee's observation stimulated a revision of the presentation of the data in Table 1 aimed at improving clarity, so we better specified the caption relating to the table. In fact, Table 1 indicates the percentage of LTP users out of the total research participants (the total 100% is given by users + non-users) which is why the sum of the percentages by gender, age and users' categories is not equal to 100.
6. As reported in the article, the vast majority of LPT users also use private cars and only a small part travel exclusively by LPT. An evaluation of travelling by private cars by public transport users was not within the scope of the present study. Literature in consistent in showing that the overestimation of the benefits of the car for those who do not use public transport is an obstacle to change (see for exeple Verplanken, B.; Walker, I.; Davis, A.; Jurasek, M. Context Change and Travel Mode Choice: Combining the Habit Discontinuity and Self-Activation Hypotheses. J Environ Psychol 2008. 28. 121–127). However, consistently with the reviewer's comment, this consideration was included both in the introduction and in the discussion.
7. The analysis has a correlational level. In this study we did not consider the most complex level of possible interaction. The possibility of the existence of such effects and the possibility of investigating them furtherly in future studies have been included in the limitations of the article.

We do not find a relationship between L629 and the reviewer's comment. We hypothesize that this comment refers to the literature relating to the relationship between concerns for sustainability and the environment and the use of public transport. The cited studies do not describe categories of people supporting or against sustainability but highlight the correlation between a measure of concern for the environment and the use of public transport.

Reviewer 4 Report

Page 1, title, “Travel experience and reasons for the use and non-use of local public transport: A case study within the community interregional project SAMBA (Sustainable Mobility behaviours in the Alpine Region)”: My suggestion is to change the title to “Travel experience and reasons for the use and non-use of local public transport during the Covid-19 pandemic: A case study within the project SAMBA”, since it better reflects the content of the paper.

Page 1, Keywords: My suggestion is to include “Covid-19” in your keywords.

Section 1. Introduction: My suggestion is to try having special subsections, if possible, in the literature review for the benefit of the reader (pages 1 to 4, up to “1.1. The present study”).

My suggestion is to include the structure (Sections) of the paper at the end of Section 1. Introduction.

Page 3, lines 124-125: Please change [49.51] to [49-51].

Section 2. Materials and Methods: Please include a Data Flow Chart describing all your methodological steps (from the literature review to discussion and conclusions) for the benefit of the reader.

Page 5, line 213, “…400 fully completed questionnaires were collected out of the 599…”: Please include, within your manuscript, the analytical calculations concerning the sample size, the equation used, and justify why this sample size was considered appropriate for the purposes of your work.

Section 3. Results, Table 1: Please include, within your manuscript, the justification for the selection of the specific age clusters. Please note that the sum of the percentages (age) is not equal to 100%. The same also applies in the case of “Users’ categories”.

Page 9, Figure 1: Please note that “the worst travel I can think of – the best travel I….” is incomplete.

Section 4. Discussion: My suggestion is to include a special subsection which must be dedicated to policy recommendations arising from your findings. Now, it is not so easy for the reader to focus on your recommendations.

Section 5. Conclusions: Please extent the part of the conclusions which is associated with the constraints and limitations of your work (perhaps a special subsection will help).

My suggestion is to include the following reference in your literature review since it is at the heart of your work: Vaitsis, P.; Basbas, S.; Nikiforiadis, A. How Eudaimonic Aspect of Subjective Well-Being Affect Transport Mode Choice? The Case of Thessaloniki, Greece. Soc. Sci. 2019, 8, 9. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci8010009

Author Response

1) e 2) We thank the referee for the suggestion that allowed us to clarify within the article the potential influence of the pandemic on the collected data. As inserted in the paragraph “The present study”: “The data collection period coincided with the final phase of the pandemic emergency, during which, with the end of the lockdown measures, people regained the possibility to move freely, attend hospitals, and use public transportation while adhering to pandemic containment measures: wearing masks, keeping interpersonal distances, and hand disinfection. Preliminary data for this study, collected as part of the SAMBA project, indicated that the number of both hospital affiliates and users of the public bus service did not significantly differ from the pre-pandemic levels. For this reason, in investigating the motivations for the use and non-use of public transportation, as well as satisfaction with the travel experience, some questions related to the perception of risk of COVID-19 contagion were specifically created and included in the questionnaire. However, we believe that the collected data may more widely reflect the reasons for public transportation use even with regard to the post-pandemic period in which the study was conducted”. The impact of the pandemic on the use of public transportation was not the focus of SAmba project nor of the present work. Consistently with these reasoning, and after deep consdieration, we chose not to modify the title of the paper nor the keywords.

3) the suggested change was made (please see the paragraph “the present study”)

4) the suggested change was made

5) the flow chart was inserted

6) the methodology was integrated with the description of the sampling strategy

7) The referee's observation stimulated a revision of the presentation of the data in Table 1 aimed at improving clarity, so we better specified the caption relating to the table. In fact, table 1 indicates the percentage of LTP users out of the total research participants (the total 100% is given by users + non-users) which is the reason why the sum of the percentages by gender, age and users' categories is not equal to 100.

8) the graphics problem has been amended

9) The practical implications have been included in a specific section of the conclusions

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10) The limitations section has been improved accordingly

11) the suggested reference has been added to the article as reference n 29 (please see introduction and discussion) and the following references has been renumbered.

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for submitting your revised manuscript for further review. I appreciate the efforts made in addressing previous concerns, particularly in clarifying the impact of the epidemic on data statistics. However, there are still some areas that require attention and improvement as outlined below:

1. (1) Your table presents the percentage of LPT users as a part of the total participants, categorized by gender, age, and user category. There seems to be some confusion in the interpretation of these percentages. For instance, it is stated that LPT users constitute 23% of all participants, with male LPT users representing 26% of the total. This implies that male and female LPT users combined should account for a total percentage less than or equal to 23%, not more. However, the combined percentage of male and female LPT users appears to exceed this, totaling 42%. Additionally, the age ratio presented in the table sums to a figure greater than 100%, which is logically inconsistent. Please revise this table for clarity and accuracy.

2. (2) Towards the end of the manuscript, you mention the influence of LPT stereotypes on the decline in LPT users. This raises a question regarding the scope of your questionnaire – did it include questions to assess the impact of these stereotypes on user preferences and choices? If not, this might be a significant oversight, as understanding the stereotype's influence could provide deeper insights into user behavior and preferences. I recommend either revising the questionnaire to include this aspect or discussing the potential implications of this limitation in your study.

In conclusion, while your manuscript has shown considerable improvement, addressing these points is crucial for enhancing the clarity and comprehensiveness of your study. I look forward to your revised submission.

Minor editing of English language required

Author Response

We sincerely thank the reviewer for their additional comments aimed at improving the clarity of the paper. 1) We appreciate the suggestion and have made changes to the table by presenting all the percentages of users and non-users divided into categories, along with the row percentages for each group. 2) In line with the referee's comment, we have amended vocabulary inaccuracies in the description of the results. We opted to replace the expression 'stereotypical view' with 'negative perception' of certain aspects of public transportation service, which more accurately reflects what was investigated through the questionnaire. Additionally, in the section dedicated to limitations and future perspectives, we have included a consideration regarding the need to investigate the presence of stereotypes related to public transportation and how such stereotypes may influence the choice not to use it. Changes inserted in round 2 are highlighted in blue, while previous modifications appear highlighted in yellow."

A professional language revision in academic UK style has been conducted.

Round 3

Reviewer 3 Report

None

None