Situational Context and Route Choice in Public Transport: An Exploratory Stated-Choice Study of Travellers Trade-offs in Germany

Kurzfassung

Public transport (PT) is central to a sustainable mobility transition, yet attracting travellers requires a detailed understanding of how they choose between alternative routes. Route choice is shaped by attributes such as in-vehicle travel time, the number of transfers, onboard crowding, and walking distance, but most evidence stems from stable, everyday conditions and from countries other than Germany. This study examines how four route attributes: walking time, crowding, travel time, and the number of transfers, are valued, and how their valuation shifts across three situational travel contexts: a relaxed baseline, time pressure, and extreme weather (heat or heavy rain). An exploratory stated-choice experiment was conducted with 99 respondents, each completing 17 choice tasks among three routes, in cooperation with the German Aerospace Center (DLR). Choices were analysed with conditional logit, mixed logit, and context- and sociodemographic-interaction models. Across all contexts, transfers carried by far the strongest penalty, equivalent to roughly 14.7 minutes of travel time per transfer, followed by travel time and walking, whereas crowding was, on average, weak and statistically non-significant. Mixed logit indicated substantial preference heterogeneity, especially for crowding. Attribute valuation was clearly context-dependent: under heat, sensitivity to crowding and walking increased markedly, while sociodemographic moderators were largely non-significant. The findings suggest that situational context, particularly thermal stress, reshapes comfort-related preferences and should inform demand modelling and resilient service design.