Exploring the Perceived Security in Transit: The Venetian Students’ Perspective

The current growing private travel demand generates high external costs and
hence calls for effective solutions to be adequately managed. Unsustainable
passenger modal choice is generally related to one of the following six factors:
economic growth, increasing income levels, rising car ownership, transport
system improvements, demographic changes and competition between public
and private transport. Some of the latter effects will be examined in this paper.
Massive use of private car may be induced from several reasons. Barring user
irrationality, discontent with transit service should be considered between the
main causes. This is normally caused from low perceived quality, and previous
surveys indicate security between the parameters which influence transit quality
judgment more intensively. This paper describes a survey conducted from the
authors within the students of their institution through a SP questionnaire.
Empirical findings are presented for a data set of 347 out of a total population of
5,738 (6.05%). Drawn conclusions seem to indicate that a significant part of the
respondents clearly exhibited fears for their personal security in relation to transit
stops and immediate access routes. Not surprisingly, female respondents
exhibited higher levels of fear than the males. Respondents generally tend to
prefer transit stations that are guarded and spaces in which they feel that others
could observe them through CCTV in operation (when approaching access
points and while waiting on transit stops). Survey analysis has also allowed to
determinate places and time slots in which the passenger security perception is higher and some measures to adopt in order to make this feeling stronger.