Barriers to implementing flexible transport services: an international comparison of the experiences in Australia, Europe and USA

Flexible transport services (FTS) are an emerging term in passenger transport which covers a range of mobility offers where services are flexible in one or more of the dimensions of route, vehicle allocation, vehicle operator, type of payment and passenger category. Research in New South Wales (NSW), Australia identified a number of barriers to the implementation of FTS and this paper explores the extent to which these barriers have been encountered and tackled in the USA and Europe where flexible transport services have been used increasingly as part of the public transport mix in areas where demand is too low to support conventional public transport. Barriers include institutional frameworks such as policy and regulation; economic issues of funding and fares; operational issues of fleet and vehicles; as well as operator and community attitudes; and information and education. The paper makes recommendations to enable and encourage greater use of flexible transport services by transport service planners and providers through the sharing of best practice and information on overcoming barriers to implementation.