The evaluation of demand responsive transport services in Europe

Over the last decade Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) services have grown in popularity for several reasons including: the shortcomings of conventional regular bus and taxi services; shortcomings of special transport services; and new developments in community transport. Traditional dial-a-ride services have often been criticised because of their relatively high cost of provision, their lack of flexibility in route planning and their inability to manage high demand. The potential for overcoming these limitations may be realised through the introduction of telematics-based DRT and this has been widely demonstrated, for example, in recent research funded by the European Commission (e.g. the DGXIII-funded SAMPO and SAMPLUS projects). This paper provides an introduction to the concept of telematics-based DRT services and presents the results of the evaluation of a set of DRT technologies and operations at urban and rural sites across Europe. The paper offers discussion in terms of the key issues that influence the introduction of DRT services.