Citizen experience in public transport: A systematic review and future research agenda

Public transport is a relevant issue for cities’ and territories’ development. From the perspective of consumer behavior, citizens’ experience as users and consumers is a topic of interest for public policy, especially at times when people are expected to avoid agglomerations. Given the lack of literature found in the systematic review regarding the future research agenda of consumer behavior in public transport, this research analyses the methodological perspectives, variables, and conceptual approaches relating to citizen experience of public transport. This systematic review takes 1997 to 2020 as a time frame and complies with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines; in addition, the research question follows the Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome, Context (PICOC) strategy. The review of experiences in the public sector leads to a classification of articles that refer to citizens’ experience of public transport. The main findings show four research topics concerning citizen experience of public transport: the individual perspective on factors influencing the experience; the comprehensive design of public transport in different process stages (pre-core, core, post-core, and redesign) and its interaction with citizens; the decision-making process involved in selecting “routes” and “modes” for travel; and responses and reactions to stimuli aimed at evaluating the experience. To conclude, the discussion focuses on the future lines of research in the area.