Benchmarking public transport for international tourists

Objectives

  • To develop a framework for benchmarking urban public transport for international tourists
  • To benchmark selected cities using the framework to assess their relative performance and areas for improvement
  • To explore the relationship between city scale and public transport performance.

Method

  • Literature review to identify key elements of public transport of importance to international tourists
  • Development of framework containing 26 weighted criteria to benchmark public transport systems for international tourists
  • Benchmarking of public transport systems in selected cities within Australia (mostly Queensland) and internationally.

Key results

Gold Coast (Queensland) has the highest performance, followed closely by London and Paris.
Fig. 1 Total scores by assessment category

Source: De Gruyter et al. (2016)

Fig. 2 Total scores and international visitation

Source: De Gruyter et al. (2016)

  • Gold Coast (Queensland) has the highest performance, followed closely by London and Paris
  • Sunshine Coast, Cairns and Townsville (all located in Queensland) have lower performance due to a relatively large spread of tourist attractions which increases the scale of the transport task for tourism purposes
  • Cities with high numbers of international tourists tend to have better public transport performance
  • While Sunshine Coast, Cairns and Townsville had relatively low scores by international standards, their performance is very good when considered in the context of their international visitation levels
  • Results help to identify areas of good performance and gaps in how public transport meets the needs of international tourists.

Research Papers

De Gruyter, C., Currie, G., Reynolds, J., Peel, V. & Yang, Y. (2016) Benchmarking public transport for international tourists in Queensland cities. Presented at the 38th Australasian Transport Research Forum (ATRF), Melbourne, Australia.

Yang, Y., Currie, G., Peel, V. & Liu, Z. (2015) A New Index to Measure the Quality of Urban Public Transport for International Tourists. Presented at the 94th Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., United States.