Bus service quality at transfer areas. An assessment procedure based on temporal disutility

Bus service quality at transfer areas. An assessment procedure based on temporal disutility | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Bus service quality at transfer areas. An assessment procedure based on temporal disutility Miquel Salicrú, Josep Mension, Miquel Estrada This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-4462729/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract The design of many transit networks is based on transfer stations. Transfers allow better service connectivity and the avoidance of deploying unaffordable door-to-door services among origin and destination points of low demand. However, these potential improvements in terms of cost and performance are achieved at the expenses of forcing users to incur a temporal disutility at transfer facilities. In this paper, we consider that the quality experienced by users at transfers mainly depends on the temporal disutility. It consists of the walking time between loading areas, the waiting time for bus arrivals at the loading area, and the variability of those times. Hence, a procedure to measure the quality at the transfer areas is proposed, integrating the three relevant components: the physical layout of the transfer area; synchronisation between connected routes; and discrepancies between their actual and scheduled service. A quadratic expression of the previous concepts is justified as a valid approach to measure the total quality of the transfer by transit operators with available data. The calibration of the parameters can be obtained considering the customer perception, the consensus of experts, and the partial consensus of experts with regularity conditions. The proposed model can monitor the transfer performance attributes that depend on service operations and allows attributing the loss of quality to each component involved in the process. The new methodology developed through the paper was applied to Barcelona’s New Bus Network, although it would be generally applicable in other modes of transport. Bus quality transfer penalty transfer-based networks temporal disutility Full Text Additional Declarations Competing interest reported. The main affiliation of the second author corresponds to the main local public bus agency in Barcelona, Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona (TMB). Dr. J. Mension completed his PhD in the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. One of the outputs of his PhD studies was the current methodology for assessing quality at transfers, presented in this paper. TMB has been benefitted from this output, since the quality assessment procedure has been implemented in the public company to monitor the quality at transfers. Nevertheless, the data presented in this paper were strictly those measured by the AVL equipment and TMB telemetric system. The results have been reported objectively, even acknowledging that the performance of the TMB service was not outstanding during the temporal domain under analysis. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-4462729","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":306131478,"identity":"bffa7b43-3836-41fe-84b4-00ace00bb460","order_by":0,"name":"Miquel Salicrú","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"University of Barcelona","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Miquel","middleName":"","lastName":"Salicrú","suffix":""},{"id":306131479,"identity":"7c501fed-d7db-4bc6-a959-be4cc81931b4","order_by":1,"name":"Josep Mension","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona (Spain)","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Josep","middleName":"","lastName":"Mension","suffix":""},{"id":306131480,"identity":"5b9d0300-33f6-4e29-b979-bb7875812f17","order_by":2,"name":"Miquel Estrada","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAA60lEQVRIiWNgGAWjYDACZhBRAOXwMNjAGIS0GAAxG1hlGhFaGFC1HCasRbedeZvEBwMGOfn5vQ8/vKk5n7id/QDjg7dtuLWYHWYrk5xhwGBscIzdWHLOsduJO3sSmA3n4tXCYybNY8CQuIGNjUGah+124oYbDGzSvIS0/DFgqJ/fxsb8m+ffOZAW9t8EtQC9n8BwjA1k+AGwLcz4tbAVW/YYSBhuOJbGZjm3L9l4Z09is+Scc3i0nD+88caPCht5+eZjzDfefLOT3c5++OCHN2W4tTBAIkUCmcvYgFc9VAtu7igYBaNgFIwCBgCu1kmFMjeklQAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==","orcid":"","institution":"Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Miquel","middleName":"","lastName":"Estrada","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2024-05-22 18:57:41","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-4462729/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4462729/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":82845664,"identity":"2dcc4112-7500-4cad-b39b-5361c6267f81","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-05-16 01:16:28","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":863297,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"BusServiceQualityatTransferAreasSalicru2024.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-4462729/v1_covered_833d778e-70bd-4b49-aaae-639ab98be2e2.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"Competing interest reported. 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