Tool to assess regional public transport plans for integrated systems

This study developed a tool that can be used by planners to assess the quality of their regional public transport plan and to produce a well-integrated system. The five attributes of integration - network integration, integrated timed transfer, integrated physical connection for transfers, information integration, and fare and ticketing integration - were adopted to develop a framework that illustrated the relationship between them. The tool was composed of the developed framework and a multicriterion decision-making approach; three steps were required to complete the assessment. In Step 1, each integration attribute was scored at an upper level and for each subattribute based on the information provided in the plan. Step 2 involved the analytical hierarchy approach, a multicriterion decision-making tool, to determine the weight of each attribute on the basis of its importance. The final step was to calculate the total weighted score of the plan. The novelty of the approach was the integration of a well-defined and easy-to-use framework with a systematic, hierarchical weighting model. Two case studies were undertaken to demonstrate the use of the tool: the regional plans of New Zealand's two most metropolitan cities, Auckland and Wellington. The results demonstrate that the tool can be used to assess the quality of public transport plans for integration. The tool's ability to indicate deficiencies can assist decision makers to improve their planning toward a better public transport system.