# User Satisfaction Survey on Public Transport by a New PAHP Based Model
## 4 Results of the Parsimonious AHP Survey  
In 2019, between the 6 th and the 27 th of December, we applied the introduced PAHP methodology in a survey on passenger satisfaction with public bus transportation, in the Turkish big city, Mersin. The hierarchical decision structure of satisfaction attributes was exactly the same as in a previous conventional AHP survey in 2019, between the 5 th of October and the 4 th of November. The new Parsimonious AHP procedure, however, contained some simple pairwise comparisons and also some direct evaluations for the selected Parsimonious level (second in the hierarchy; see Figure 1), and the other levels were not altered from the previous case. We conducted short personal interviews in two phases at bus stops along the main public bus lines of Mersin. The first phase targeted specifically the Parsimonious level of the hierarchy and contained direct evaluations of the second level elements in the structure. The second phase aimed to conduct the necessary pairwise comparisons between the supply quality elements on the other levels and the pairwise comparisons of the selected attributes on the Parsimonious level. The first phase was conducted in one week, and the second in two weeks. During the three weeks, \(500+500\) responses were collected from two patterns with the following characteristics (Table 3 for first round survey and Table 4 for the second round). Figure 1: The main steps of parsimonious AHP survey. Both patterns are somewhat similar to the demographic situation of Mersin and definitely similar to the typical public transport users (Mersin and others, 2018) of the city (dominantly young students and employees). The average time of evaluations was around 5 min in the first phase and was 15 min in the second but did not exceed 20 min in any case. The response rate was very high in both rounds with an estimated proportion of 90%, probably due to the instructor applied and the personal contact. Moreover, the consistency of the responses was high, since the instructor could answer any questions referred to the understanding of the meaning and mode of evaluation. The construction of the questionnaire followed the PAHP approach for the following model of passenger satisfaction. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{l l l l} \hline \hline
**Passengers = 500** & & & **\%** \\ \hline \multirow{2}{*}{Gender} & Male & 252 & 50.4 \\  & Female & 248 & 49.6 \\  & Married & 179 & 35.8 \\  & Single & 321 & 64.2 \\  & 18–30 years & 321 & 64.2 \\ Age & 31–55 years & 135 & 27 \\  & \textgreater{}55 years & 44 & 8.8 \\  & Primary school & 9 & 1.8 \\  & Secondary school & 11 & 2.2 \\ Education level & High school & 178 & 35.6 \\  & Bachelor’s degree & 264 & 52.8 \\  & MSc/PhD degree & 38 & 7.6 \\  & Student & 243 & 48.6 \\  & Employee in private sector & 93 & 18.6 \\  & Employee in public sector & 104 & 20.8 \\  & Retired & 60 & 12 \\  & 1–5 trips/week & 56 & 11.2 \\  & 5–20 trips/week & 297 & 59.4 \\  & 21–30 trips/week & 133 & 26.6 \\  & \textgreater{}30 trips/week & 14 & 2.8 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 4: Respondents’ characteristics of the second-round pattern. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{l l l l} \hline \hline
**Passengers = 500** & & & **\%** \\ \hline \multirow{2}{*}{Gender} & Male & 258 & 51.6 \\  & Female & 242 & 48.4 \\  & Married & 186 & 37.2 \\  & Single & 314 & 62.8 \\  & 18–30 years & 313 & 62.6 \\ Age & 31–55 years & 139 & 27.8 \\  & \textgreater{}55 years & 48 & 9.6 \\  & Primary school & 12 & 2.4 \\  & Secondary school & 15 & 3 \\ Education level & High school & 184 & 36.8 \\  & Bachelor’s degree & 257 & 51.4 \\  & MSc/PhD degree & 32 & 6.4 \\  & Student & 231 & 46.2 \\  & Employee in private sector & 98 & 19.6 \\  & Employee in public sector & 107 & 21.4 \\  & Retired & 64 & 12.8 \\  & 1–5 trips/week & 59 & 11.8 \\ Frequency of use & 5–20 trips/week & 291 & 58.2 \\  & 21–30 trips/week & 139 & 27.8 \\  & \textgreater{}30 trips/week & 11 & 2.2 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 3: Respondents’ characteristics of the first round.