Know Your Customer: Enhanced Awareness of Travel Patterns and Preferences

This brief explains how the UPPER project is strengthening understanding of travel patterns and preferences to support public transport planning. It starts from the observation that, while public transport authorities (PTAs) and public transport operators (PTOs) routinely monitor satisfaction and respond to feedback, systematic involvement of current and potential users in public transport planning is still rare. UPPER therefore tests more structured, “bottom‑up” approaches that complement established mobility planning and can be shared across the sector.

The brief outlines an initial understanding phase using two approaches. First, it applies netnography – an online research method using ratings and comments posted on digital platforms – to analyse user feedback in five cities (Valencia, Paris, Rome, Oslo and Mannheim). Comments are processed using natural language processing to assess overall sentiment and intensity of feelings, and to identify common drivers of positive and negative experiences and frequently suggested improvements. The analysis covers several modes, including bus, metro/tram, taxi, shared bike, shared low‑emission vehicles (e‑scooters/motorbikes) and shared cars.

Second, Experience Notebooks and mobility maps combine qualitative and quantitative techniques (based on anthropological research) to build user profiles and link them to mode choice, reasons for use and improvement needs. Mobility maps are developed for groups including adults with children, elderly people, people with functional diversities, low‑income groups, women and young people, with the stated goal of enabling PTAs and PTOs to better meet public expectations.

The brief then illustrates how this insight is being used in city activities, including Budapest’s neighbourhood‑to‑neighbourhood (“tangential”) travel survey; perceived quality of service surveys in Versailles Grand Parc; street surveys and dashboarding in Leuven; focus groups, journey mapping and personas supporting network redesign in Lisbon (CARRIS); and new dialogue formats (a serious game and a “data walk”) in Mannheim. Finally, it introduces UPPER’s toolkit (U‑TOOLS), including U‑GOV, a platform for citizen interaction structured around four participation levels and tested in multiple sites.

Key lessons learnt

The brief’s central message is that satisfaction scores alone do not explain what different users need in order to choose and keep using public transport. UPPER’s city work shows how richer customer insight, combined with structured participation, can feed into planning, communications and service improvements.

Key learnings include:

1. Digital feedback can be converted into evidence for decision-making. Analysing online ratings and comments at scale helps identify recurring issues, what triggers strong positive or negative reactions, and the improvements users most frequently ask for. Used well, this complements traditional surveys by adding timely, experience‑based signals.
2. Segmentation supports more targeted measures. Mobility maps link user profiles (e.g., older people, low‑income travellers, people with functional diversities, adults with children, women and young people) to mode choice and expectations. The practical value is making differences visible, so measures are not designed only around an “average passenger”.
3. Understanding non‑commuting demand can reveal network priorities. Budapest’s neighbourhood‑to‑neighbourhood (“tangential”) survey highlights the importance of trips such as leisure and shopping, and pinpoints barriers that discourage public transport use (speed, number of transfers, travelling with bulky luggage). The brief reports that results are being used to identify new public transport connections.
4. Perceived service quality and passenger information influence uptake. Versailles Grand Parc combines perceived quality with existing indicators, establishes a baseline for end‑of‑project comparison, and uses results for mobility‑related campaigns. Other city work highlighted in the brief also points to the “first step” challenge with non‑users and the role of reliable, usable information and digital tools in shaping confidence in public transport.
5. Tools and engagement methods can make participation more consistent and inclusive. The brief presents U‑TOOLS as supporting better use of mobility and service data, and highlights U‑GOV as a structured platform for citizen interaction across four participation levels, being tested in several sites and planned for feedback collection linked to stops, multimodal connections and accessibility‑related information delivery.