Development of Variant Definitions for Stakeholder Groups with Regard to the Performance of Public Transit in the United States

Abstract

In the United States, the performance of public transit systems is often characterized, in both the popular press and academic literature, as being mediocre at best and growing steadily worse. Drawing on insights from the extant literature and a census of all U.S. transit systems, this research argues that "multiple definitions" of transit performance exist and are composed of three macro‑constructs which are weighted differently by different stakeholder groups and thereby provide unique definitions for each stakeholder group. Statistical analysis of the data suggests that there are differences in both the absolute importance and relative importance placed on the three macro‑constructs by U.S. transit stakeholder groups. Therefore, the examination of public transit performance from a multiple stakeholder points‑of‑view perspective appears warranted in order to better evaluate the performance of public transit systems.