# Perceived Accessibility: Impact of Social Factors and Travel Modes in Melbourne's West
## 2 Materials and Methods
### Data Collection  
The primary data were collected through surveys of residents, travellers, and workers in the selected study area of Point Cook. A survey questionnaire was designed to gather data on the perceptions of the accessibility, safety, and service quality of public transport among the respondents. The questionnaire comprised four parts. Parts A to C collected information about the respondents' assessments of the perceived accessibility, safety, and service quality of public transport, whereas Part D focused on demographic characteristics that enabled an evaluation of how these assessments varied among specific groups of people. A five-point Likert scale was applied to most of the questions, with respondents asked to specify their level of agreement (1--strongly disagree, 2--disagree, 3--neutral, 4--agree, and 5--strongly agree) with each statement. Open-ended questions were also provided at the end of each section that encouraged respondents to share other feedback or suggestions. [PERSON] et al. 's framework (Table 1) involving four quantifiable items was adopted to assess perceived accessibility to daily activities in Part A of the questionnaire [7]. As shown in Table 2, the first four survey questions (A1-A4) were about the respondents' perceived accessibility with the use of their existing travel mode, followed by another four questions (A5-A8) to assess their perceived accessibility by using public transport only. This restriction helps us access how perceptions of accessibility to daily activities and life choices change in favour of public transport over car usage. Assessing accessibility with restricted car use is seen as very critical for the global sustainability agenda [9], and is particularly relevant for areas with frequent car usage, such as Point Cook. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{l} \hline The ease of doing daily activities \\ The ability to live the life one wants \\ The ability to do preferred activities \\ The satisfaction with perceived access to preferred activities \\ \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 1: Measures of perceived accessibility. Figure 1: Map of the study area. Parts B and C of the questionnaire covered perceived safety and service quality, respectively, which were also measured on a five-point Likert scale. In view of the lack of studies about people's safety perceptions on whole-trip experiences of using public transport [22], the indicators of perceived safety were designed to assess the feeling of safety (a) in getting to and from public transport stations/stops, (b) at the public transport stations/stops, and (c) on board. In Part C, the SERVQUAL approach was adopted to capture respondents' perceptions of the service quality of public transport [23]. The SERVQUAL framework is often used to explore different dimensions of quality expectations for most services assessing the trust, confidence, and satisfaction people have in using services like public transport [24]. The final section of the survey asked about respondents' gender, age, means of transport, and frequency of usage of public transport. The survey questions were reviewed by the Project Steering Group members with representatives of public, private, and not-for-profit organisations and received ethical clearance from the University Human Research Ethics Committee. Data from the survey were collected using both online and offline methods. The survey's online questionnaire was developed and reviewed using the survey design software Qualtrics XM for data collection. Regarding the sampling strategy, three approaches were adopted to reach a variety of travellers and residents of the study area. Firstly, postcards showing the study information, including the website link and the quick response (QR) code of the online survey, were distributed into letterboxes to invite the residents of Point Cook to participate.