A Moovit application survey published exclusively in "Globes" shows that at least as far as time spent waiting and traveling from the point of departure to the destination, public transportation in metropolitan Tel Aviv is in the top third in efficiency among the major cities that participated in the survey. The survey was based on a sample taken in the first week of August in major cities in the US, Latin America, Europe, and Israel among 12,000 users of the Moovit application.
The survey, which was conducted for the third time this year, assesses the use of public transportation on an international scale, and attempts to evaluate the level of service according to time parameters. First, the length of time taken for a trip on public transportation was measured, and the amount of time spent waiting at stations was derived from it. Los Angeles headed the table with an average time of 134 minutes - two and a quarter hours daily. Los Angeles is the holy grail of the private vehicle, with high-speed roads covering it in all directions, and this figure indicates mainly the awful state of public transportation there. European metropolitan areas Paris, Barcelona, and Milan had the lowest average travel times for public transportation and taxis - about an hour and a half.
From Rabin Square to Times Square
Rating of the level of public transportation services in cities was determined by the ratio of waiting time to travel time. For example, while travelers using public transportation in Paris (trains, buses, and light railways) waste only 23% of their travel time waiting for vehicles, and therefore head the efficiency table. Rome, where 44% of travel time is wasted on waiting for vehicles to arrive, is in last place.
It is of course pleasant to discover that Israel shares fourth place on the efficiency table with New York, both with just over a quarter of travel time wasted on waiting. But however flattering this figure may appear, it should be kept in mind that this measure of efficiency ignores the length of the journey itself. For example, the total daily travel time on public transportation in New York is 114 minutes, 24 minutes more than in Tel Aviv. This measure also ignores the distance covered during this time. Assuming that a traveler in metropolitan New York covers much longer distances than those covered by the usual traveler in Tel Aviv, and may also have to change vehicles more often, the picture of efficiency and resemblance between public transportation services in the two cities will change somewhat.
The survey did not check the number of vehicle changes, but an examination of the motives for selecting a given type of public transportation found that the number of changes was a significant factor for Israelis. 30% of the Israeli respondents said they selected forms of public transportation that would require fewer changes between lines. 45% of the Israelis said that the duration of the journey was the most important factor, which is reminiscent of the argument about the public transportation reform, which was allegedly designed to shorten travel times, but required more changes by travelers. Either way, the survey indicates that price and comfort were not significant considerations in selecting the form of transportation. Only 14% of Israeli travelers cited the comfort of the journey (a seat, air-conditioning, a table) as a consideration, and only 12% said that the price would change their selection of one or another public transportation vehicle. Attention should be paid to this point, given the complaints about the high price of train travel - it turns that that this is not what keeps most Israelis from choosing their main form of public transportation.
Almost half (48%) of travelers reported that the most painful point in using public transportation in Israel was uncertainty about when the vehicle would reach the station (before the use of Moovit). The survey proves that certainty about the arrival time of vehicles is critical in cities and countries throughout the world. In all the metropolises surveyed, except for Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, and Bogota, certainty about arrival is what most concerns travelers. In Rio de Janeiro and Bogota, two cities where public transportation has been undergoing accelerated development at the cost of huge investments, travelers cited the crowding of vehicles as the aspect that bothered them the most. In Mexico City, travelers claimed that their biggest difficulty was not knowing the best route to their destination.
Moovit CEO Nir Erez examined the findings from the three surveys conducted this year, and said that the findings showed that our public transportation had improved, as indicated by shorter travel and waiting times. "Comparing transportation data in Israel with the usual figures in the international survey enables us to view it from a broader perspective," Erez said. Moovit is an application that entered the market in 2012, and has since acquired nine million users in 40 countries in Europe, North and South America, Asia, Australia, and in 400 cities, including New York, Paris, London, Rome, Los Angeles, Barcelona, Sao Paulo, Sydney, and Toronto.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 7, 2014
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2014