Transportation Research Part A 46 (2012) 1690–1706

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Transportation Research Part A

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tra

Evaluating bicycle-transit users’ perceptions of intermodal

inconvenience
Yung-Hsiang Cheng ⇑, Kuo-Chu Liu
Department of Transportation and Communication Management Science, National Cheng Kung University, No. 1, University Road, Tainan City 701, Taiwan, ROC

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Bicycles and transit systems are considered to be the pinnacle of green transportation. The
Received 6 January 2012 combined use of the two could provide a competitive alternative for an integrated, green,
Received in revised form 8 September 2012 and seamless service, yet relatively few studies have investigated the multimodal integra-
Accepted 8 October 2012
tion problems of the entire service chain from the perspective of users. Users’ perceived
inconvenience during travel can be regarded as a latent construct that describes an unob-
servable and immeasurable characteristic. Nevertheless, the traditional Likert method in an
Keywords:
ordinal scale causes a misleading statistical inference. The Rasch model eliminates such
Bicycle-transit
Perceived inconvenience
bias generated by an ordinal scale through a logistic linear transformation, and it compares
Rasch model person parameters with item parameters, which are then subjected to a logarithmic trans-
formation along a logit scale to clearly identify which service items’ inconvenience cannot
be easily overcome by certain users. This empirical study demonstrates that perceived
inconveniences differ based on the users’ sex, riding frequency, trip purpose, and environ-
mental awareness. The differential item functioning analysis that was adopted in this study
can identify the critical factors leading to the differences in perceived inconvenience. Our
empirical results suggest that a male cyclist who is a commuter with a high monthly riding
frequency and who is environmentally conscious has a better ability than their counterpart
to overcome perceived inconveniences during travel using a bicycle-transit service. To
effectively mitigate users’ perceived inconvenience, the Rasch analytical results suggest
that the improvement of the intra-transit system factors in the short term and the
improvement of external environmental factors in the long term will be successful. The
information herein proves useful for transportation planners and policy makers when con-
sidering the special travel needs of certain groups to create a user-friendly bicycle-transit
travel environment that promotes its usage.
Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Economic development and population growth in metropolitan areas can lead to a heavy reliance on automobiles (Bowes
and Ihlanfeldt, 2001). Unfortunately, as more people rely on private transportation services, there are greater external costs
such as serious pollution, thus exacerbating a possible greenhouse effect and climate change (Hensher, 2008; Poudenx,
2008). To reduce energy consumption and air pollution, some restrictive policies on private car usage have been instituted
(Hensher, 2008; Morrow et al., 2010). However, private cars still have an advantage over other transportation in terms of
convenience and privacy during trips in cities.

⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +886 6 2757575x53227; fax: +886 6 2753882.

E-mail address: yhcheng@mail.ncku.edu.tw (Y.-H. Cheng).

0965-8564/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tra.2012.10.013
 Y.-H. Cheng, K.-C. Liu / Transportation Research Part A 46 (2012) 1690–1706 1691

As an alternative, it is difficult to find a transit system that is as fast and convenient as using a car because transit options
often are more time-consuming or involve walking distances (Brown et al., 2003). Cycling and transit transport are the pin-
nacle of green transportation, and cycling and a transit system may be mutually complementary modes (Rietveld and Daniel,
2004). A transit system service provides a high-capacity, medium-to-long distance transportation service that is reliable,
comfortable, and has a positive image (Button and Rietveld, 1999). The bicycle can be an effective means for getting places
as well, particularly for trips that are too long for walking or that are not served by any other form of transit (Murphy and
Knoblauch, 2004; Keijer and Rietveld, 2000; Martens, 2007). Therefore, the combination of bicycle usage and a transit system
could thus be a competitive alternative to private vehicles because it is able to provide seamless connections (Rissel, 2003;
Martens, 2004).
A number of studies have been published that focus on the combined use of bicycle and rail transport in terms of trans-
portation planning, policy assessment, economic performance, and the beneficial results of policy promotion (Ortúzar et al.,
2000; Porter et al., 1999; Rietveld, 2000; Martens, 2004; Givoni and Rietveld, 2007; Taylor and Mahmassani, 1996), yet rel-
atively few studies have investigated the multimodal integration problems from the perspective of users. Users can easily
switch to utilizing the bicycle-transit service after the bicycle-transit intermodal inconvenience has been significantly ame-
liorated. Therefore, identifying which service components of the entire bicycle-transit service chain lead to users’ inconve-
nience is an interesting issue. Substantial differences may exist between travel experiences that are based on age, sex, and
disability (Gärling, 2005; Stradling et al., 2007; Cheng, 2010). Therefore, the analysis of travel survey data can help identify
users’ habitual actions and characteristics (Rietveld and Daniel, 2004; Gardner, 2009). This study investigates the perceived
inconvenience of users that is associated with bicycle-transit travel and thereby derives solutions for improving such incon-
veniences in a multimodal integration through an analysis of socioeconomic variables and human factors.
This study proposes an integrated system service chain approach to diagnose all of the service items that cause inconve-
nience during users’ travel in a bicycle-transit service. Users’ perceived inconvenience during their travel is considered to be
a latent construct describing an unobservable and immeasurable characteristic. Nevertheless, the traditional Likert method
with an ordinal scale causes a misleading statistical inference. This study contributes to the research by using the Rasch
method to eliminate the bias generated by an ordinal scale through a logistic linear transformation and compares person
parameters with item parameters, which are then subjected to a logarithmic transformation along a logit scale to clearly
identify which service items’ inconvenience cannot be easily overcome by certain users. We thus derive an effective strategy
to reduce users’ perceived inconvenience. This study also investigates how differences in some users’ socio-economic char-
acteristics affect the perceived inconvenience that is associated with bicycle-transit travel. In practice, the study’s results de-
rive several managerial implications and serves as a reference for transit agencies, urban planners, and bicycle designers
seeking to improve their services and physical environments.
The advantage of applying the Rasch model is that it provides an additional parameter indicating the location of an item
and it compares the person parameter and item location on the same scale. Every cyclist’s perceived inconvenience can be
measured by comparing his or her ability and the service item’s difficulty that imposes resistance against the user’s conve-
nience. This model can thus tell us which cyclists are not comfortable with specific service items and which service items are
appreciated by certain groups of cyclists. Therefore, this study can address a certain group of users with specific social demo-
graphic characteristics to identify how they perceived the inconvenience during their bicycle-transit travel. The information
can be used to concentrate on a targeted customer group to design a customized marketing and training program.

2. Service conditions of the Kaohsiung Mass Transit System in Taiwan

Kaohsiung is Taiwan’s second largest city, a major industrial and port center, and it is situated on the southeast coast of
the island. The percentages of private car and motorcycle ownership and their usage are relatively higher than other metro-
politan cities in Taiwan. To reduce the negative impact that is caused by private cars and motorcycles, the Kaohsiung Rapid
Transit Corporation (KRTC) developed a 42.7 kilometer (km)-long transit network of two lines under a build-operate-
and-transfer (BOT) model. In this transit network, the two lines (red and orange) comprise 37 stations. The red line runs
north–south and connects 23 underground stations, one elevated station, and two depots. The total length of this line is
28.3 km, of which 19.8 km is underground and 8.5 km is elevated. The orange line is 14.4 km long, running along the
east–west axis, and connects 14 stations and a main depot. The KRTC provides a service frequency of 3 min at peak periods
and 5 min during off-peak times. Trains travel at an average of 38.56 km/h (24 mph) on the red line and 35.1 km/h (22 mph)
on the orange line.
One problem that has resulted is that the transit network is localized in a relatively small area, making the accessibility of
the Kaohsiung transit system less than satisfactory. The least satisfied service items perceived by transit passengers are
associated with the feeder system’s service quality, such as an unfriendly passenger information system and infrequent
feeder buses (Chang and Cheng, 2009). Therefore, it is essential that an effective feeder transportation mode provide seam-
less integration services from the users’ perspective.
The strategy for choosing the feeder system of a transit system can depend on the city’s development demand, transit
network, city population spatial distribution, transit service headway, and access and egress distances to the transit station.
Cities with high population densities are likely to need a high-quality feeder bus service with short headways for the transit
network. On the other hand, in the case of Kaohsiung, the developing transit network is not well dispersed around the city,
1692 Y.-H. Cheng, K.-C. Liu / Transportation Research Part A 46 (2012) 1690–1706

and the ridership can still be increased. Due to Kaohsiung’s less frequent transit service and greater access and egress dis-
tances to the transit stations, bicycles can provide a more efficient mode of transport. Feeder bus systems are more costly and
generally slower than accessing transit by bicycle. Transit access by bicycle may yield higher advantages from the perspec-
tives of transport planners and transit agencies than access by feeder bus (Pucher and Buehle, 2009; Brons et al., 2009); how-
ever, cyclists’ perspectives toward service provided during bicycle-transit travel is still lacking. Therefore, the present study
aims to examine perceived inconvenience during bicycle-transit travel from users’ perspective to fill the service gap, which
can be useful to transport planners and transit agencies.
Kaohsiung has been named one of five bike-friendly Asian cities by the Cable News Network (CNN). Kaohsiung has a
growing network of bike lanes that currently adds up to 150 km. Moreover, the infrastructure for cyclists is still developing
in Kaohsiung. While the city of Kaohsiung attempts to promote a green transportation system policy, the bicycle lanes and
the related infrastructures are still developing. Good accessibility of the transit system is thus essential for providing door-
to-door service to attract more users. Therefore, the experience in Kaohsiung is of interest to other cities in Asian countries
that are still developing transit networks.
The revenue service of the Kaohsiung transit system began in 2007. The largest city in Taiwan, Taipei, already has a well-
established transit network and an effective bus feeder system. Moreover, the bike lanes in Taipei are relatively short for
cyclists. In cities in the preliminary stage of transit network development, such as Kaohsiung, the user’s short bicycle com-
mute and a diversified feeder mode demand can be accommodated appropriately by bicycles. Moreover, the majority of ac-
cess or egress trips to the transit station in Kaohsiung are of less than 2 km, a distance that can be easily cycled. That is the
reason why Kaohsiung was chosen as our case for further analysis.

3. The conceptual model for exploring users’ perceived intermodal inconvenience during bicycle-transit travel

Many recent studies have recognized the importance of bicycles in urban transportation planning and development. Pu-
cher et al. (2011) compared the specific cycling accomplishments of nine case study cities in Canada and the USA, focusing on
each city’s innovations and lessons. Bicycle use has been considered in terms of its association with environmental aspects,
such as the relief of traffic volumes, cycling accidents, town size, distance traveled and demographic aspects, by examining
the 589 municipalities in Belgium (Vandenbulcke et al., 2011). Ehrgott et al. (2012) proposed a bi-objective cyclist route
choice model that characterizes the suitability of a route for cycling, including safety, traffic volumes, traffic speeds, presence
of bicycle lanes, and whether the terrain is flat or hilly. Börjesson and Eliasson (2012) estimated the value of time savings,
different cycling environments and additional benefits in a cost-benefit analysis of cycling investments.
Cycle paths can also be planned as feeder routes for bike-and-ride systems (Brons et al., 2009; Pucher et al., 2011; Ehrgott
et al., 2012). After evaluating various options to enhance bicycle and transit integration strategies, bicycle-on-transit was
considered to be the most cost-effective (Krizek and Stonebraker, 2011). Although there are many previous studies that focus
on bicycle-transit integration, especially on the benefits of coordinating cycling with public transport (Hagelin, 2005; Krizek
and Stonebraker 2010, 2011; Pucher and Buehle, 2009; Brons et al., 2009), relatively few studies evaluate the users’ incon-
venience of bicycles in transit service.
Various options to enhance bicycle and transit integration strategies can be adopted: bicycle-on-transit, bicycle to transit,
shared bicycle, and two bicycles. Bicycle-on-transit service was deemed the most cost-effective strategy (Krizek and Stoneb-
raker, 2011). Even with the existence of bicycle accommodation with capacity and use limitations during peak transit hours,
cyclists generally preferred bicycle-on-transit (Pucher and Buehle, 2009; Krizek and Stonebraker, 2011). Bicycle parking
capacity limitations must be overcome, and thus a bike-and-ride strategy, which encourages cyclists to bring their bicycles
on board instead of leaving them parked at stations, is being developed in some cities worldwide (Hagelin, 2005). Therefore,
our study focuses on investigating the users’ perceived inconvenience during the bicycle-on-transit service so as to highlight
some measures that can mitigate these inconveniences by examining every possible service item in the whole service chain.
The combined use of bicycles and rail transit can be traced back to the 1970s. Park-and-ride initially was developed with-
in the Dutch transportation system, and bicycle parking facilities in the Netherlands, such as bicycle racks, have been pro-
vided or upgraded at most stations since then (Martens, 2007). To promote bicycle usage, solutions to bicycle theft and
vandalism, such as lockers, unguarded shared check-rooms, and guarded bicycle parking garages, have been developed in
Japan and much of Europe (Replogle, 1993). Although bicycle transit has been developed and promoted extensively in Eur-
ope (Sully, 1998; Wood, 1993; Martens, 2004), it is a newly-introduced transportation mode in Taiwan, and a few problems
have already arisen from the combined use of bicycles and a transit system. This study adopts Kaohsiung as a case study,
with consideration in terms of the city’s population, spatial distribution, transit network development, and increasing length
of bicycle paths. Although the city government and transit agency have tried their best to promote the use of the bicycle-
transit service, a user-friendly environment has not yet been established (Chang and Cheng, 2009). Moreover, conflicts
between bicycle-on-transit users and other regular transit passengers have arisen at times. Therefore, the city government
authority and the transit agency need to solve the problems that are encountered during bicycle-on-transit trips to encour-
age more people to adopt this environmentally-friendly transportation mode.
Fig. 1 shows the service items that users might experience during their bicycle-on-transit trips. A bicycle-on-transit trip is
defined herein as ‘‘Users utilize a bicycle as an access mode from the origin to transit stations and bring their bicycles into the
station and on board, and then use the bicycle as a feeder mode to connect between their destination station and their
 Y.-H. Cheng, K.-C. Liu / Transportation Research Part A 46 (2012) 1690–1706 1693

Pre-service stage Service involving stage External environment

Coach restrictions Long feedering distance Road pavement conditions After-sales

Inconvenience of carrying
personal belongings service stage
Station restrictions Weather conditions
Looking for metro stations Complaint channels
while biking and procedure
Regulations’
Traffic flow conditions
complexity

Origin Station Station In-service stage Destination

Pre-service After-sales
stage service stage
In-service stage

Folding bicycles Access/leave stations Purchasing ticket Emergency evacuation

Bringing bicycles Other passengers’ Restriction on Using toilet with

aboard reaction bike-carrying bicycles

Fig. 1. Process of using bicycle transit.

ultimate destination’’ in accordance with Fig. 1. In particular, users employ the same bicycle during the whole bicycle-on-
transit trip. Based on Lovelock and Wirtz’s (2007) study, the connection between service provider and customer is separated
into five stages – ‘‘in pre-service,’’ ‘‘service involving,’’ ‘‘external environment,’’ ‘‘in-service,’’ and ‘‘after-sales service’’ – to
make our service items more comprehensive.
In the pre-service stage, researchers emphasize whether the service available, time and place, and the restrictions on bicy-
cle usage meet users’ requirements. Therefore, some regulations regarding the time span during usage and the designated
area at the station are included. Users who use a bicycle-on-transit service for the first time might also need to look for tran-
sit stations while cycling (Porter et al., 1999). Furthermore, carrying personal belongings during the bicycle-on-transit ser-
vice can also lead to users’ perceived inconvenience. These two items are considered in the service involving stage.
For the in-service stage, this study considers all possible items that cause users’ perceived inconvenience during their tra-
vel throughout the intra-transit system. With respect to the external environmental factors, users might also be influenced
by weather conditions, such as rain, wind, and temperature, while sudden changes in weather have a negative impact on the
bicycle-transit travel process (Bickelbacher, 2001; Nankervis, 1999). The poor traffic and pavement conditions that are
considered in this study also have a negative impact on bicycle-transit service quality (Landis et al., 1997; Chang and Chang,
2008). Regarding after-sales service, bicycle-transit user retention is influenced by complaint channels and recovery services
(Lovelock and Wirtz, 2007). In addition to the previous relevant literature, this study arranged an interview with an expert at
the KRTC to verify the appropriateness of the items. A pre-test survey was also conducted to further confirm the aptness of
the items contained in our questionnaire. Table 1 presents the possible service items that cause users’ perceived inconve-
nience for the whole bicycle-on-transit travel process.

4. Data and methods

This study adapts the Rasch model to measure the latent constructs of users’ perceived intermodal inconvenience by tak-
ing data from their perspective during bicycle-on-transit travel. This research develops a survey through a questionnaire that
is based on the measurement items from an entire service chain process perspective using bicycle-on-transit services as well
as the literature measuring traveler inconvenience that is associated with bicycle-on-transit. The questions were mostly
associated with the external environment, such as weather, road pavement, and accommodation service at the transit
station.
Table 1 lists the measurement items. Respondents were asked whether they agree that the service attribute list in Table 1
made them experience inconvenience during their travel using the bicycle-on-transit service. Respondents responded to
items on a five-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 for ‘‘strongly disagree,’’ 2 for ‘‘disagree,’’ and 3 for ‘‘neutral’’ to 4 for ‘‘agree’’
1694 Y.-H. Cheng, K.-C. Liu / Transportation Research Part A 46 (2012) 1690–1706

Table 1
Service items for measuring users’ perceptions of intermodal inconvenience during bicycle-transit travel.

No. Item Literatures

1 Regulations prohibiting the use of bicycle-on-transit Ortúzar et al. (2000) and Lovelock and Wirtz (2007)
during peak hours aboard
2 Regulations prohibiting the use of bicycle-on-transit Lovelock and Wirtz (2007)
during peak hours in the transit station
3 Complexity of regulations concerning bicycle-on- Lovelock and Wirtz (2007)
transit service
4 Inconvenience of carrying personal belongings during Andersen (1997), Porter et al. (1999)
the bicycle-transit service
5 Looking for metro stations while biking might lead to Porter et al. (1999)
difficulties in bike-and-ride trips
6 Bicycle lanes and paths to transit stations Pucher (1999), Porter et al. (1999), Landis et al. (1997), Ortúzar et al. (2000)
7 Weather conditions Keay (1992), Nankervis (1999), Porter et al. (1999), Ortúzar et al. (2000), Olszewski
and Wibowo (2005), Hensher (2008), Chang and Chang (2008)
8 Traffic flow conditions Faghri and Egyháziová (1999), Landis et al. (1997), Olszewski and Wibowo (2005),
Saelens et al. (2003), Chang and Chang (2008)
9 Bringing folding bicycles aboard Rietveld (2000)
10 Entering stations with bicycles Suggested by the expert
11 Purchasing tickets while using bicycle-on-transit Suggested by the expert
service
12 Bringing the bicycle aboard Rietveld (2000)
13 Space limitation for storing the bicycle in designated Suggested by the expert
area of transit car
14 Other regular transit passengers’ reaction Suggested by the expert
15 Emergency evacuation Lovelock and Wirtz (2007)
16 Use of toilet during the bicycle-transit service Lovelock and Wirtz (2007)
17 Appropriate complaint channels and treatments Lovelock and Wirtz (2007)

and 5 for ‘‘strongly agree.’’ Respondents also provided basic demographic information on sex, age, trip purpose, income,
monthly bicycle riding frequency, ownership of private vehicles, and concepts of environmental awareness.
We adopted a systematic sampling strategy to collect data. Questionnaires were distributed to every third passenger
using a bicycle at the entrance to the Kaohsiung main transit stations during the study period. In total, 1000 questionnaires
were distributed and 460 questionnaires were returned, of which 386 were valid. 74 questionnaires were excluded due to
missing items and response errors.

4.1. The Rasch model

In 1960, Rasch introduced a model for the analysis of dichotomously-scored responses (Masters, 1982). If the data fit the
model assumption, then item parameters could be estimated independently of the characteristics of the calibrating sample
and person parameters could be freed from the difficulties of the items taken (Rasch, 1960, 1977). Therefore, the Rasch mod-
el can be applied as a psychometrical method that converts empirical ordinal-level raw scores of performance into linear
equal interval measurements by means of logistic transformation (Wright and Linacre, 1987; Fisher, 1922).
The benefit of the Rasch model is sample independence as well as instrument independence. This means that if the Rasch
model fits a set of data, then the item characteristics that are estimated across different groups and contexts will be equiv-
alent and not depend upon a specific sample (Andrich, 1978). MacKnight and Rockwood (2000) further revealed that ordinal
numbers are not truly numbers, meaning that ordinal numbers represent merely a more- or less-particular quality. The Ras-
ch model can eliminate the misleading data generated by an ordinal scale through a logistic linear transformation. Harwell
and Gatti (2001) demonstrated that the traditional Likert method with an ordinal scale causes a misleading problem, which
means that the relative differences among values composing the scale are not equal in terms of what is being measured. In
other words, the ordinal scale is just measured as a rank ordering of scores without applying the possibility of further para-
metric statistics or arithmetical operations.
The distance between different categories of the rating scale in classical test theory cannot be applied to mathematical
arithmetic calculation directly. Hence, the ordinal scale without computation characteristics makes the classical test theory
difficult to carry out using an arithmetic procedure (Ostir et al., 2006; Zhu and Cole, 1996). This phenomenon becomes one of
the major challenges in the application of the traditional Likert ordinal scale theory. However, the Rasch model can overcome
this defect by employing the logarithmic transformation to estimate the log-odds. Through this transformation, the distance
between various categories would be the same, which endorses the mathematical calculation of item difficulty value and
makes it easy to examine a relative relationship between a respondent’s ability and the item’s difficulty. Therefore, the Rasch
model can provide a wide range application of test measurement, such as additive and subtractive arithmetic modes (Lee
et al., 2010). Kahler et al. (2008) indicated that if items fit a Rasch model, the scale can be assumed to have an additive char-
acteristic across the full range of the continuum as well.
 Y.-H. Cheng, K.-C. Liu / Transportation Research Part A 46 (2012) 1690–1706 1695

High High

User A
(b) Regulations prohibiting the use of
bicycle-on-transit during peak hours

User B
(a) Space limitation for storing the bicycle
in the designed area of the transit car
User C

Low Low

Fig. 2. Illustration measuring users’ perceived inconvenience when using the bicycle-transit service by the Rasch method.

Fig. 2 shows the measurement concept this study has applied to the Rasch model. In this study each user n has a unique
ability, hn, that represents the capability of user n to overcome the inconvenience associated with an item. Each item i has a
difficulty value, bi that represents the resistance against a user’s convenience. In the Rasch model, user ability, hn, and item
difficulty, bi, are calibrated on the same scale. In Fig. 2, the right side ranks the items from high to low based on their diffi-
culty level, and the left side ranks users by their ability to overcome any inconvenience from high to low. By comparing items
and users, one can easily identify the relationship between them. Therefore, user B feels that ‘‘space limitation for storing the
bicycle in the designed area of the transit car’’ is convenient because his or her ability level is higher than the difficulty level
of this item, indicating that this user can overcome the inconveniences caused by this item. Relatively, user A does not expe-
rience inconvenience about items on ‘‘regulations prohibiting the use of bicycle-on-transit during peak hours’’ and ‘‘space
limitation for storing the bicycle in the designed area of the transit car.’’ Moreover, ‘‘regulations prohibiting the use of bicy-
cle-on-transit during peak hours’’ is the item that can cause the most difficult inconveniences for both users B and C.
In this study, when a user indicates that an item will not cause him or her inconvenience, the service item is scored 1;
otherwise, a score of 0 is assigned. The probability that user n will indicate that he or she feels inconvenient about item i
with ease is as follows, where hn represents a user’s ability to overcome an inconvenience and bi represents item difficulty,
implying the resistance against the user’s convenience:
ehn bi
Pð1jhn ; bi Þ ¼ : ð1Þ
1 þ ehn bi
The probability that user n will report that he or she cannot overcome item i with ease is:
1
Pð0jhn ; bi Þ ¼ 1  Pð1jhn ; bi Þ ¼ : ð2Þ
1 þ ehn bi
The odds that user n will report that he or she can overcome item i with ease is:
Pð1jhn ; bi Þ
¼ ehn bi ; ð3Þ
Pð0jhn ; bi Þ
and the log of the odds ratio, or logit, is:
Pð1jhn ; bi Þ
ln ¼ hn  bi : ð4Þ
Pð0jhn ; bi Þ
A person’s ability (hn) and item difficulty bi are subsequently converted into odd ratios or logits to identify the data’s fit to
the model. The person and item parameters in the case of dichotomous responses can be estimated from response odds
ratios in the dataset by using Eq. (4). Based on the dichotomous responses, the Rasch model was tailored such that it is appli-
cable to polytomous rating-scale instruments, such as the five-point Likert scale (Andrich, 1978; Masters, 1982). The mod-
ified Rasch model assigns bix as the value of the item parameter, indicating the bicycle-on-transit travel inconvenience in this
study for rating category x to item i. Therefore, this study models the log odds of the probability that a person will respond in
category x for item i, compared with category x  1, as a linear function of the person parameter, indicating the respondent’s
perception of travel inconvenience hn and the relative parameter of category x, namely bix, for item i:
 
Pnix
ln ¼ hn  bix : ð5Þ
Pniðx1Þ
1696 Y.-H. Cheng, K.-C. Liu / Transportation Research Part A 46 (2012) 1690–1706

According to the Andrich modification of the Rasch model for a polytomous response, two formulations – the rating-
scales model and the partial-credit model – are widely applied in assessing the values of items and person parameters.
The rating-scales model is utilized for instruments in which the definition of the rating scale is identical for all items,
whereas the partial-credit model is employed when the definition of the rating scale differs among items. The partial-credit
model is similar to the rating-scales model, except that each item i has its own threshold parameters Fix, for each category x
(Wright, 1977). This is achieved by a reparameterization of Eq. (5):
bix ¼ bi þ F ix : ð6Þ
The partial-credit model now becomes:
 
Pnix
ln ¼ hn  bi  F ix : ð7Þ
P niðx1Þ

In assessing the travel inconvenience of bicycle-transit users, one need not assume that the rating scales of items are equal.
Therefore, this study adopts the partial-credit model for analysis.

5. Empirical result analysis

We analyze the responses of 386 cyclists with WINSTEPS (Linacre, 2006), an interactive computer program that estimates
hn for respondent n and bi for item i in logit units. WINSTEPS can deal with polytomous responses by applying the Masters–
Andrich modification (Masters, 1982) of the Rasch model. The estimated parameters and model fit statistics were calibrated
via a Joint Maximum Likelihood Estimation (JMLE) procedure (Wright, 1996).

5.1. Descriptive statistics

This survey collected 386 valid samples. Male and female respondents account for approximately 58.3% and 41.6% of
respondents, respectively. Most of the respondents (85.4%) use folding bicycles as a feeder mode. Among the age groups,
respondents aged between 21 and 30 years have the highest percentage (31.3%) of bicycle-on-transit usage, and the use
of bicycle-on-transit decreases progressively with age. For various income groups, no specific income level is found to be
prominent. In addition, most of the respondents using bicycle-on-transit services are commuters as well as leisure travelers.
Monthly riding frequencies are mostly less than or equal to 4 times (73%) because most of them are for leisure trips. Further-
more, most bicycle-on-transit trips are able to be completed within 30 min as a two-way feeder trip.

5.2. Tests of unidimensionality

Unidimensionality indicates that all items included in the questionnaire measure a single construct, and this implies that
only one latent trait is measured (Brentari and Golia, 2008). We conduct exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to test whether the
data fit is unidimensional. The analytical results demonstrate that the percentage of explained variation for the first factor is
25.38%, which is greater than 20%. Moreover, the ratio of the eigenvalues between the first and the second factors is 2.7 (a
ratio exceeding 2.00 is supportive of unidimensionality) (Lumsden, 1961, 1976). The results imply that this empirical study’s
data do not violate the unidimensionality assumption of item response theory (IRT). In addition, when the assumption of
unidimensionality is met, the assumption of local independency is fulfilled as well (Lord and Novick, 1968).

5.3. Item parameter estimates and fit statistics analysis

The infit and outfit are the two parameters in the Rasch model for testing the goodness-of-fit index (GFI) (Prieto et al.,
2003). The infit and outfit values provide information about how well items contribute to users’ measured inconvenience.
The outfit mean square statistic (MNSQ) is based on the conventional sum of square standardized residuals. There is another
form of fit value, Zstd, which represents the probability of the MNSQ value occurring by chance when the data fit the Rasch
model. Zstd is a standardized fit statistic and usually conforms to a z or t distribution (Bond and Fox, 2001a,b). Infit Zstd and
outfit Zstd are statistics that are standardized and have approximate mean zero and standard deviation one. Values of infit
and outfit Zstd should range between ±3 (Oreja-Rodrı´guez and Yanes-Estévez, 2007; Cheng, 2011).
The reliability estimations of the Rasch model are for both items and persons (Wright and Masters, 1982). Item reliability
indicates the replicability of item placements when the same items are given to another sample with comparable abilities.
Person reliability indicates the replicability of a person’s ordering that can be expected when this sample is given another set
of items measuring the same construct. The internal consistency of responses to items can be represented by person and
item reliabilities in the IRT studies (Chang and Wu, 2008). The person and item reliability coefficients in this study are
0.99 and 0.86, respectively. Both coefficients are greater than 0.7, indicating good reliability, i.e., the data collected in this
study are consistent with the assumptions of the Rasch model from both the item and person perspectives (Chang and
Wu, 2008; Wright, 1996). A person separation index of 2.48 (>2.00) implies a good level of separation in the person measures
(Duncan et al., 2003). The mean infit Zstd and outfit Zstd values are both 0.1, which are acceptable according to the ±3
 Y.-H. Cheng, K.-C. Liu / Transportation Research Part A 46 (2012) 1690–1706 1697

parameters from the viewpoints of persons and items (Wright and Linacre, 1987). Moreover, the overall MNSQ values are
also acceptable.
The goodness of fit can be examined via infit MNSQ and outfit MNSQ (mean square), which represent respondents’ overall
performance. Although the accuracy of these two indices might be influenced due to the sample size, if infit and outfit MNSQ
are near to one, then local independence and ideal fitness is indicated (Prieto et al., 2003). According to Smith and Miao
(1994), when the sample size ranges from 200 to 500, the value of infit MNSQ should range between 0.7 and 1.3. The sample
size in this study is 386 and both item and person infit MNSQ are 1.00, which demonstrates that the items measure one spe-
cific trait.
The concept of infit and outfit Zstd (Z-standardized fit statistic) is the transformation of MNSQ via the Wilson–Hilferty
approximation, as Zstd approximates a t-distribution with mean 0 and standard deviation 1 (Wilson and Hilferty, 1931; Ore-
ja-Rodrı´guez and Yanes-Estévez, 2007). The standardized statistics are less likely to be influenced by sample size and can be
considered to be a normal distribution according to the central limit theorem. Table 2 presents the calibration results. The
analytical results of items and persons statistics show the appropriateness of the Rasch analysis.

5.4. The person-item map of the Rasch model

A difficulty value ‘‘bi’’ that represents the resistance against users’ convenience toward each item during their bicycle-on-
transit travel can be obtained via the Rasch model analysis (Table 3). Table 3 shows that the MNSQ values of both infit and
outfit ranging from 0.86 to 1.18 are near to one, which implies that person responses are capable of fitting the Guttman scale
well (Guttman, 1950; Bond and Fox, 2001a,b; Chang and Wu, 2008). If the item difficulty bi is greater than zero, then it is
comparatively hard for the service item to overcome the perceived inconvenience and most of the respondents are likely
to perceive inconvenience, for example, in item 7, ‘‘Weather conditions in the bicycle-on-transit service,’’ which has the
highest difficulty, 1.36 logit. On the other hand, respondents believe that item 5, ‘‘Looking for transit stations while using
bicycle-on-transit service,’’ is the simplest situation, which has the lowest difficulty, 1.11 logit. The other five relatively dif-
ficult situations are described in item 8 (traffic flow conditions), item 16 (use of toilet during the bicycle-on-transit service),
item 6 (bicycle lanes and paths to transit stations), item 4 (inconvenience of carrying personal belongings), and item 13
(space limitation for storing the bicycle in the designed area of the transit car). The other simple situations include item
9 (bringing folding bicycles aboard), item 1 (regulations prohibiting the use of bicycle-on-transit during peak hours), item
2 (regulations prohibiting the use of bicycle-on-transit during peak hours at the transit station), item 17 (appropriate com-
plaint channels and treatments), item 11 (purchasing tickets while using bicycle-on-transit service), item 12 (bringing the
bicycle aboard), item 10 (entering into stations with bicycles), item 15 (emergency evacuation), item 14 (other regular tran-
sit passengers’ reaction), and item 3 (complexity of regulations regarding bicycle-on-transit service).
In accordance with the classification of the dimensions defined in this study, we can now estimate the arithmetic means
of difficulties, including pre-service, service involving, external environment, in-service, and after-sales service. The Rasch
analytical result reveals that the average measure of difficulty in the external environment, corresponding to item 6 to item
8, reaches 1.06 logit, indicating the greatest obstacle causing users’ perceived inconvenience during their bicycle-on-transit
travel. The average measures of in-service, service involving, pre-service, and after-service difficulties are 0.12 logit, 0.32
logit, 0.39 logit, and 0.48 logit, respectively.
Fig. 3 depicts the person-item map presenting the number of persons capable of overcoming an item with different levels
of item difficulty. The left-hand side shows a person’s ability, and persons located at a higher level imply they have a better
ability to overcome the difficulty in alleviating their perceived inconvenience. Item difficulty is listed on the right-hand side,
and the notations ‘‘M,’’ ‘‘S,’’ and ‘‘T’’ represent mean, one standard deviation, and two standard deviations, respectively (Yang,
2009). The items are also ranked by levels of difficulty. If the level of a person’s ability is very close to the item difficulty, then
respondents have an approximately 50% chance of overcoming the item difficulty. Furthermore, if a person’s ability is higher
than the item difficulty, then the probability of overcoming the item is higher as well, and vice versa. The length of horizontal
bars on the left side reveals how many users can overcome the corresponding service item.

Table 2
Fit statistics obtained from Rasch analysis.

Raw score Count Measure Model error Infit Outfit

MNSQ Zstd MNSQ Zstd
Rasch analysis for person parameters
386 respondents
Mean 51.2 17 0.11 0.28 1.00 0.0 1.00 0.0
Person Reliability (Rp): 0.86
Person Separation (Gp) = 2.48
Rasch analysis for item parameters
17 items
Mean 1163.3 386 0.00 0.06 1.00 0.1 1.00 0.1
Item Reliability: 0.99
1698 Y.-H. Cheng, K.-C. Liu / Transportation Research Part A 46 (2012) 1690–1706

Table 3
Estimation of item measures and fit statistics.

No. Item Measure (bi) MNSQ Zstd

Infit Outfit Infit Outfit
7 Weather conditions access 1.36 0.97 0.97 0.4 0.3
8 Traffic flow conditions 1.19 0.86 0.87 2.3 2.1
16 Use of toilet during the bicycle-transit service 0.82 0.93 0.96 1.1 0.6
6 Bicycle lanes and paths to transit stations 0.64 0.86 0.86 2.1 2.1
4 Inconvenience of carrying personal belongings during the bicycle-transit service 0.48 1.02 1.07 0.3 1.0
13 Space limitation for storing the bicycle in the designed area of the transit car 0.28 1.07 1.11 1.1 1.6
3 Complexity of regulations concerning bicycle-on-transit service 0.05 0.93 0.92 1.1 1.2
14 Other regular transit passengers’ reaction 0.12 0.86 0.86 2.1 2.1
15 Emergency evacuation 0.20 1.06 1.06 0.9 0.9
10 Entering stations with bicycles 0.21 1.10 1.12 1.5 1.7
12 Bring bicycles aboard 0.30 0.89 0.88 1.6 1.8
11 Purchasing tickets while using bicycle-on-transit service 0.40 1.03 1.00 0.5 0.0
17 Appropriate complaint channels and treatments 0.48 1.07 1.05 1.0 0.8
2 Regulations prohibiting the use of bicycle-on-transit during peak hours in the transit station 0.55 1.04 1.06 0.6 0.9
1 Regulations prohibiting the use of bicycle-on-transit during peak hours 0.56 1.03 1.03 0.4 0.4
9 Bringing folding bicycles aboard 0.80 1.04 0.98 0.7 0.2
5 Looking for metro stations while biking might lead to difficulties in bike-and-ride trips 1.11 1.15 1.18 2.1 2.2

Fig. 3. Person-item map for measuring perceived inconveniences during bicycle-transit travel.

The relationship between item difficulty and a person’s ability can be examined in accordance with the person-item map.
For example, the most difficult item, item 7 (weather conditions), is located outside of two standard deviations, and only
nine respondents (2.3%) are able to completely overcome this service item. On the other hand, item 5 (looking for metro sta-
tions while using the bicycle-on-transit service) is considered to be the simplest situation. Except for item 8, which is located
between one standard deviation and two standard deviations, implying that it would be quite difficult for respondents to
overcome, and item 9, which is located between 1 standard deviation and 2 standard deviations and indicating a com-
paratively simple situation, all of the other items are located within one standard deviation. Generally, a person’s ability
is normally distributed, but an obvious peak is observed near 1 standard deviation, indicating that most of the respondents
have difficulty during their bicycle-transit travel. Therefore, the overall bicycle-on-transit service providing process should
be improved, especially in the external environment and the connection of feeder modes, to provide cyclists with a friendlier
cycling environment.
The following person-item map shows how many respondents are able to overcome the difficulty in bicycle-on-transit
trips described in each item. Based on this figure, we are capable of determining the possible improvement strategies in se-
quence (Cheng, 2010).

5.5. The person parameter estimation

The raw score of each person has been monotonically transformed into a measure of a person’s ability. Except for item
difficulties, the Rasch model is able to obtain a respondent’s ability (hn) for identifying each user’s cognitive difficulty in alle-
 Y.-H. Cheng, K.-C. Liu / Transportation Research Part A 46 (2012) 1690–1706 1699

viating his or her inconvenience during bicycle-on-transit travel. The measurement of ability is represented in ‘‘logit’’ units. A
higher logit value implies less difficulty in bicycle-on-transit trips, and vice versa. According to Bond and Fox (2001a,b), be-
fore conducting further group comparisons, both over-dispersed and under-dispersed responses, which imply that respon-
dents violate the monotonic property of the Rasch model, should be deleted (Chang and Wu, 2008). Following this method,
the sample size reduces to 386 and still satisfies the aforementioned sampling requirement.
The advantage of the Rasch model is in comparing the respondent’s ability and the item difficulty on the same axis so that
we can monitor the numbers of cyclists who overcome the perceived inconvenience caused by the service items during the
bicycle-on-transit travel. Fig. 4 shows the percentages of surveyed respondents whose ability can overcome the difficulty
they have in alleviating the inconvenience for each item. External environmental factors, such as weather conditions, cyclist
path pavement conditions, and traffic conditions to the transit stations, are the principal determinants that many users are
not able to overcome.

5.6. The analysis of group differences

To examine whether significant differences in users’ perceived inconvenience exist among various groups, we employ a
one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) (Cheng, 2010). This study adopts the 386 valid samples that have been examined
through fit statistics. The subgroups defined in this study include gender, age, ownership of private vehicles, monthly riding
frequency, income, trip purpose, and environmental awareness. In accordance with Table 4 at the 95% confidence level, the
ANOVA shows a significant effect on monthly riding frequency (p = 0.000), trip purpose (p = 0.001), and environmental
awareness (p = 0.000). Additionally, gender (p = 0.028) is also significant among the subgroups.
Respondents with more riding experience might have already become accustomed to bicycle transit, and they thus have a
better ability to deal with any potential inconvenience during trips. The ability of respondents with a monthly riding fre-
quency of less than four times is an average 0.173 logit, which is clearly different from those with a monthly riding fre-
quency of more than 15 times (0.51 logit). In addition, the ability of leisure users (0.201 logit) is lower than commuters
(0.064 logit), indicating that leisure users still perceive an inconvenience compared to commuters when using the bicy-
cle-on-transit service.
The p-value is as large as 0.000 for those groups with or without environmental awareness. The ability of respondents
with environmental awareness (0.049 logit) is far higher than those without environmental awareness (0.555 logit).
Accordingly, this finding implies that respondents with environmental awareness are more likely to handle the inconve-
niences generated in bicycle-on-transit trips.

5.7. Differential item functioning (DIF) analysis

To recognize which factors cause the perceived inconvenience of various subgroups, this study conducts differential item
functioning (DIF) analysis, which is applicable when an item functions differently for respondents from different groups
(Cheng, 2010). Our prior ANOVA analysis reveals that users’ perceived inconveniences differ in terms of gender, trip purpose,
environmental awareness, and riding frequencies.
Table 5 indicates that the DIF measure represents the local difficulty in each item for respondents with environmental
awareness, and the next column shows the local difficulty in each item for respondents without environmental awareness.
Furthermore, the DIF measure of gender (male and female) and trip purpose (leisure and commuter) differences are also

100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
Percentage

50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
Item

Fig. 4. Percentage of users whose ability can overcome the difficulty they have in alleviating the perceived inconvenience for each item during the bicycle-
transit travel.
1700 Y.-H. Cheng, K.-C. Liu / Transportation Research Part A 46 (2012) 1690–1706

Table 4
Average user’s ability to overcome perceptions of intermodal inconvenience in each sub-group.

Characteristic Group Sample size User’s average ability F-value P-value

Gender Male 235 0.041 4.874 0.028*
Female 151 0.215
Age 630 147 0.066 0.752 0.387
>30 239 0.135
Ownership of private vehicles No 188 0.042 2.888 0.90
Yes 198 0.173
Income 6NTD 40,000 223 0.104 0.029 0.865
>NTD 40,000 163 0.117
Trip purpose Leisure 252 0.201 11.028 0.001**
Commuter 134 0.064
Monthly riding frequency 64 times 293 0.173 9.393 0.000**
5–14 times 70 0.045
P15 times 23 0.51
Concepts of environmental awareness With environmental awareness 284 0.049 54.11 0.000**
Without environmental awareness 102 0.555
*
Significance level: p-value < 0.05.
**
Significance level: p-value < 0.01.

examined in Table 5. The DIF contrast means the differences between the estimated parameters of the two DIF measures
obtained by subtracting the measure of DIF group A from that of DIF group B.
In terms of gender, ‘‘entering into transit stations with bicycles’’ is considered to be a determinant causing the perceived
inconvenience difference. This can be explained by transit station accommodations that have not been appropriately de-
signed to consider gender differences, so that the female groups perceive more inconvenience compared to the male groups
when entering transit stations with bicycles.
‘‘Regulations prohibiting the use of bicycle-on-transit during peak hours,’’ ‘‘weather conditions,’’ and ‘‘bringing the bicycle
aboard’’ are deemed as principal factors leading to the perceived inconvenience difference in terms of trip purpose (leisure
and commuter). The condition of the weather is also considered to be an essential determinant associated with users’ envi-
ronmental awareness difference.
In terms of riding frequency, Fig. 5 shows that the greater the riding frequencies are, the more abilities the users have to
overcome their perceived inconvenience during their bicycle-on-transit travel. To further identify which categories of users
with specific features can be used to target customers, this study first focuses on analyzing cyclists with environmental
awareness and those without environmental awareness to understand the effectiveness of performing a special promotion
program for specific subgroups. The Rasch analytical results show that the ability to overcome the perceived inconvenience
during the bicycle-on-transit travel increases significantly for the subgroup with environmental awareness.
This study further divides four categories of cyclists using two specific features: environmental awareness and riding fre-
quency. (a) NE and LF: cyclists without environmental awareness and having relative low riding frequency (<15 times per
month). (b) NE and HF: cyclists without environmental awareness and having relative high riding frequency (=15 times
per month). (c) YE and LF: cyclists with environmental awareness and having relative low riding frequency. (d) YE and
HF: cyclists with environmental awareness and having relative high riding frequency. Fig. 6 shows that the abilities of group
(a) < (b) < (c) < (d) and implies that cyclists’ ability to overcome perceived inconvenience during their bicycle-on-transit tra-
vel can increase significantly with high riding frequency and environmental awareness (Fig. 6).
We compare the ability difference between group (a) and group (b) and find that cyclists with high riding frequency have
an elevated ability to overcome the perceived inconvenience and that neither of these groups have environmental aware-
ness. We also compare the ability difference between group (a) and group (c) and find that cyclists with environmental
awareness have an elevated ability to overcome the perceived inconvenience because they have the same riding frequency.
While comparing the ability gap of groups (a) and (b) and groups (a) and (c), we find that the vertical gap between (a) and (c)
is higher than the gap for groups (a) and (b). The vertical gap represents the effect of ‘‘environmental awareness’’ between
groups (a) and (c), and the vertical gap of groups (a) and (b) symbolizes the effect of riding frequency. This implies that the
effect of ‘‘environmental awareness’’ is more effective than ‘‘riding frequency’’ to improve cyclists’ ability to overcome their
perceived inconvenience. This finding means that a marketing program that is designed for such users with environmental
awareness and higher riding frequency can be more effective than for the other group of cyclists to increase bicycle-on tran-
sit usage. Notably, users with environmental awareness are more sensitive to this marketing program than those having a
higher riding frequency.

5.8. Ways to effectively mitigate a cyclist’s perceived inconvenience

To mitigate cyclists’ perceived inconveniences during their bicycle-on-transit travel, the Rasch model’s analytical results
can be applied in two ways: upgrading the ability to overcome these inconveniences and reducing the service item’s
 Y.-H. Cheng, K.-C. Liu / Transportation Research Part A 46 (2012) 1690–1706 1701

Table 5
DIF significant results.

Service stage Type Environment awareness Trip purpose Gender

dimension No.
Yes No DIF contrast Commuter Leisure DIF contrast Male Female DIF contrast
(p-value) (p-value) (p-value)
Pre-service service Item 1 0.57 0.54 0.03 (0.816) 0.74 0.21 0.52 (0.000⁄⁄) 0.54 0.58 0.04 (0.764)
Item 2 0.59 0.44 0.14 (0.282) 0.52 0.62 0.10 (0.411) 0.48 0.66 0.18 (0.144)
Item 3 0.02 0.24 0.26 (0.044) 0.07 0.01 0.06 (0.634) 0.20 0.18 0.39 (0.001)
Service involving stage Item 4 0.55 0.26 0.29 (0.019) 0.55 0.34 0.21 (0.057) 0.34 0.70 0.36 (0.001)
Item 5 1.14 1.03 0.11 (0.360) 1.02 1.31 0.29 (0.019) 1.23 0.94 0.29 (0.001)
External environment Item 6 0.62 0.72 0.10 (0.475) 0.58 0.76 0.18 (0.173) 0.61 0.70 0.1 (0.458)
Item 7 1.49 0.96 0.53 (0.000⁄⁄) 1.17 1.74 0.57 (0.000⁄⁄) 1.30 1.46 0.15 (0.224)
Item 8 1.24 1.08 0.16 (0.267) 1.07 1.45 0.39 (0.003) 1.24 1.14 0.10 (0.417)
In-service stage Item 9 0.95 0.45 0.49 (0.000) 0.59 1.33 0.73 (0.000⁄⁄) 0.79 0.83 0.05 (0.669)
Item 10 0.34 0.13 0.47 (0.000) 0.18 0.26 0.08 (0.511) 0.05 0.61 0.66 (0.000⁄⁄)
Item 11 0.40 0.41 0.01 (0.939) 0.53 0.15 0.38 (0.001) 0.43 0.36 0.07 (0.517)
Item 12 0.12 0.10 0.02 (0.851) 0.10 0.72 0.62 (0.000⁄⁄) 0.10 0.14 0.04 (0.735)
Item 13 0.35 0.16 0.19 (0.155) 0.00 0.35 0.35 (0.006) 0.23 0.42 0.19 (0.119)
Item 14 0.34 0.14 0.20 (0.147) 0.29 0.27 0.02 (0.883) 0.31 0.24 0.07 (0.582)
Item 15 0.15 0.32 0.16 (0.238) 0.25 0.09 0.16 (0.217) 0.09 0.37 0.28 (0.025)
Item 16 0.85 0.74 0.11 (0.403) 0.76 0.96 0.2 (0.088) 0.83 0.82 0.01 (0.941)
After-service stage Item 17 0.47 0.52 0.04 (0.776) 0.49 0.47 0.02 (0.868) 0.54 0.41 0.13 (0.332)

Significance level: p-value < 0.01.

Environment awareness: with and without environment awareness.
DIF contrast: group with environment awareness minus without environment awareness.
Trip purpose: commuter and leisure user.
DIF contrast: group commuter minus group leisure user.
Gender: male and female.
DIF contrast: male group minus female group.

difficulty, implying a resistance on the part of the users against experiencing convenience. For example, our Rasch analytical
results show a female cyclist who is a leisure trip user with a low monthly riding frequency and who is not environmentally
conscious has less ability to overcome perceived inconvenience during her travel under the bicycle-on-transit service. We
can design a specific training program for these cyclists to upgrade their ability so that they can overcome the difficulty
caused by the specific service items during the bicycle-on-transit travel. On the other hand, we can find some specific service
items to reduce the difficulty so as to mitigate their inconvenience.
The Rasch analytical result can assist us in identifying some specific service items to reduce the difficulty so as to mitigate
their inconvenience. In Fig. 7, we aim to examine the relationship between improvement magnitude and the percentage that
cyclists’s perceived inconvenience has been mitigated. The x axis indicates improvement magnitude in logits. The y axis de-
picts the percentage that cyclists’s perceived inconvenience has been mitigated. With the same improvement magnitude in
the x axis, the higher y increase in terms of percentage can imply a more effective influence. This study classified five stages
of service items from a whole service chain perspective during bicycle-on-transit travel: the pre-service stage, service involv-
ing stage, in-service stage, after-sales service stage and the external environment (Lovelock and Wirtz, 2007). The slope of
the line in Fig. 7 implies the effectiveness of the improvement magnitude. In terms of the x axis from 0 to 0.25 logit, we can
observe the slope of five lines, indicating various stages of service items during the bicycle-on-transit travel. Except for the
service items listed under ‘‘external environment,’’ the other four stages’ service items can be ameliorated significantly.
However, from 0.5 to 1 logit, the service items listed under ‘‘external environment’’ can have significant effects to mitigate
the perceived inconvenience compared to the other four stages’ service items. The more the improvement magnitude, the
more cost, time and resources the transit agency and the city government need to dedicate.
With an improvement of the service items of the pre-service stage, service involving stage, in-service stage, and after-
sales service stage intensifying from 0 to 0.5 logit, almost 75% cyclists can overcome their inconvenience. The 0.5 logit
can be considered as a cut-off point (critical value) to assess their improvement effect. The critical value can depend on
the managerial level’s perspective on customer’s value to transit agency and city government. The more effort is devoted
to improve the service item difficulty, the more cyclists will feel convenient during their bicycle-on-transit travel. In
Fig. 7, with an improvement from 0 to 0.5 logit, the improvement effect is not significant for the service items listed under
‘‘external environment.’’ However, the service items listed under ‘‘external environment’’ have a lag effect to improve users’
inconvenience significantly while the improvement magnitude intensifies from 0.5 to 1 logit. Therefore, the Rasch analytical
result suggests the continual devotion of efforts to improve the service items listed under ‘‘external environment,’’ as
improvement will be shown after a certain time period.
Based on the Rasch analytical result, we can derive several mitigation measures. After reaching the cut-off point that 75%
cyclists can overcome their perceived inconvenience during their use of bicycle-on-transit, efforts can be devoted to
1702 Y.-H. Cheng, K.-C. Liu / Transportation Research Part A 46 (2012) 1690–1706

0.6
0.51
0.5
0.4
0.3

Ability
0.2
0.1
0 -0.0453

-0.1
-0.1729
-0.2
-0.3
4 times 5-14times 15 times
Riding times (times/month)
Frequency

Fig. 5. Relationship between riding frequency and users’ ability to overcome perceived inconvenience.

1
(d)
0.8
0.6
0.4
Ability

0.2
(c)
0
-0.2
(b)
-0.4
(a)
-0.6
NE and LF NE and HF YE and LF YE and HF
Category

Fig. 6. Cyclist’s ability to overcome the inconvenience based on various demographical factors. NE: cyclist group without environmental awareness, YE:
cyclist group with environmental awareness. HF: cyclist group with high riding frequency, LF: cyclist group with relative low riding frequency.

100

80
Pre-service stage
Percentage %

60 Service involving stage

External environment
In-service stage
40
After-sales service stage

20

0
0 0.2 5 0.5 0.7 5 1
Improvement (logit)

Fig. 7. Relationship between improvement magnitude and the percentage that cyclist’s perceived inconvenience has been mitigated.

improving the service items under ‘‘external environment.’’ The effectiveness of this improvement can be significant due to a
lag effect. The analytical result thus suggests that improvements in the cyclist’s perceived inconvenience in the short term
should involve the service items of the pre-service stage, the service involving stage, the in-service stage, and the after-sales
service stage as well as improving the external environment for the bicycle-on-transit travel for the long term.

6. Discussions and conclusions

This study contributes to the literature by incorporating conceptual, measurement, and managerial issues that are perti-
nent to evaluating users’ perceived inconvenience during bicycle-on-transit travel. First, the study conceptualizes a modern
psychometric method, the Rasch model, to evaluate a cyclist’s perceived inconvenience by comparing the user’s ability and
the resistance against his or her convenience on various service items during bicycle-on-transit travel along the same inter-
val scale to identify which service items lead to perceived inconvenience.
 Y.-H. Cheng, K.-C. Liu / Transportation Research Part A 46 (2012) 1690–1706 1703

Second, this study derives measurement items on users’ perceived inconvenience using our proposed service chain ap-
proach during bicycle-on-transit travel. Previous research studies mostly focused on measurement items that are developed
from only one or a few factors, but this study considers the entire range of possible service items connecting the origins and
destinations of bicycle-on-transit use. The present study adopts the five-stage service model that was proposed by Lovelock
and Wirtz (2007), whereby specific service items are incorporated to strengthen the measurement items that are of less con-
cern during bicycle-transit travel.
Third, the interval scale that is transformed from ordinal data by the Rasch model is also more appropriate for further
statistical analysis to derive suitable empirical findings for managerial implications (Brentari and Golia, 2008; De Battisti
et al., 2010). The Rasch model, developed from item response theory (IRT), transforms the ordinal raw scores into equal inter-
val scales, which implement statistical inferences so as to overcome the possible bias of ordinal scales (Hagquist et al., 2009).
Moreover, the Rasch model is capable of measuring the relationship between respondents’ abilities and the resistance
against users’ convenience of a service item and designating the location along the construct’s latent continuum where
the item is most easily discriminated among individual respondents (Henson et al., 2010; Reeve and Masse, 2007). Conse-
quently, various categories of users’ perceptions on bicycle-on-transit service inconvenience can be clearly reflected through
the Rasch model analysis. Our empirical results reveal that a male cyclist who is a commuter trip user and has a high
monthly riding frequency and is environmentally conscious has the highest ability to overcome perceived inconvenience
during his travel under bicycle-transit service. These target customers with such specific characteristics can be addressed
as potential users.
The findings from the Rasch analytical results demonstrate that external environmental factors such as weather condi-
tions, the pavement condition of the bicycle lane’s access to the transit station, and traffic conflict with existing traffic on
the road are the main determinants that affect users’ perceived inconvenience, which is consistent with previous research
(Providelo and Sanches, 2011; Handy et al., 2010; Vandenbulcke et al., 2011; Larsen and El-Geneidy, 2011; Saneinejad
et al., 2012). Furthermore, the factors of the intra-transit system such as space constraints for storing the bicycle in transit,
the use of toilets, and the complexity of regulations regarding bicycle-on-transit service are the main determinants causing
users’ perceived inconvenience. Our study also demonstrates that a user’s ability to overcome a perceived inconvenience dif-
fers in terms of gender, trip purpose, bicycle riding frequency, and his or her environmental awareness. We also derive var-
ious users’ market segmented strategies herein. Our Rasch analytical results also show that external environmental factors
can influence users’ perceived inconvenience rather than the factors of the intra-transit system that a transit agency can
ameliorate. However, with the consideration of the cost-effectiveness of the various mitigation measures, the Rasch analyt-
ical results suggest the improvement of the factors of the intra-transit system in the short term and the improvement of
external environmental factors in the long term.

6.1. Managerial implications

Findings in our study can assist stakeholders, such as the city government authority, transit agencies, and bicycle design-
ers, in helping to derive several directions for improving bicycle-on-transit service.
The Rasch analytical results indicate that improving the external environmental factors can ameliorate the cyclist’s per-
ceived inconvenience when using the bicycle-on-transit service. The following suggestions are thus provided to improve
external environmental factors for the city government authorities. First, because of the city’s high ultraviolet (UV) index
and uncertain thunder showers during the summer, large shade trees are encouraged to be planted. The natural cover pro-
vided by these trees can provide a comfortable cycling environment. As canopy cover increases, certain benefits can be ob-
served, such as climate control, energy savings, improvement in air, soil, and water quality, mitigation of storm water runoff,
a reduction of greenhouse gases, and an increase in wildlife habitats (Maco and McPherson, 2002). Moreover, exuberant veg-
etation is able to cool temperatures in urban areas, and it potentially leads to increased real estate values and community
vitality (Maco and McPherson, 2002; Meney et al., 1998).
Second, the city government authority should ensure that transportation facility construction and land use development
help facilitate bicycle access to the transit system, with such steps as the installation of bicycle lanes, bike routes, shared-use
paths, and way-finding signs in order to make it easier for bicycle users to travel, to effectively reduce traffic conflicts with
other transportation modes, and to enhance safety (Hunter et al., 2000). Marking specific colored pavements for bicycle lanes
is also appropriate and will create a better visual setting and improve the safety and smoothness of vehicular driving (Lin and
Luo, 2004). Although setting up specific colored pavements is more costly than other facilities, it does provide for a better
quality of pavement use and helps prevent bicycle-motor vehicle conflicts (Hunter et al., 2000).
Third, the transit agency should recognize the specific service items of the intra-transit system during bicycle-on-transit
travel that cause users’ perceived inconvenience with respect to the target customers, which can then be connected to a ser-
vice gap model and help develop possible solutions (Parasuraman et al., 1985; Zeithaml et al., 1988). The Rasch model is able
to identify those items that cause the perceived inconveniences during bicycle-on-transit service, and this information can
assist service providers in discovering the service delivery gap (Lovelock and Wirtz, 2007). Service providers can then fill
these gaps using the appropriate improvement strategies. Based on the Rasch model analytical results, transit agencies
should be able to allocate a limited budget to better derive a cost-effective improvement strategy.
In terms of promotion, our Rasch analytical results reveal that greater bicycle riding frequency can achieve less perceived
inconvenience for the users of bicycle-on-transit service. Furthermore, the Rasch analytical results also show that cyclists
1704 Y.-H. Cheng, K.-C. Liu / Transportation Research Part A 46 (2012) 1690–1706

with more environmental awareness are likely to use the bicycle-on-transit service with more perceived convenience. There-
fore, we suggest offering appropriate promotion programs with more incentives that target users who are more environmen-
tally conscious. Doing so should help increase potential bicycle-on-transit usage.
With respect to the factors that cause users to perceive the intra-transit system as inconvenient, the Rasch empirical re-
sult reveals that the use of toilets during the bicycle-on-transit service is an essential factor that causes users’ perceived
inconvenience. Moreover, space limitation for storing a bicycle in the designated area of a transit car is also inconvenient
for cyclists. When the train is crowded, conflicts might occur between cyclists with bicycles and other regular passengers;
these conflicts must be solved to improve the satisfaction of the regular transit passengers and cyclists with bicycles on tran-
sit. One method of accommodation is to require the cyclists to board designated transit cars and to remain with their bicycles
in the designated areas with special bike racks or hooks where bicyclists can store their bikes. Moreover, it is common for
transit agencies to prohibit bicycle access on train cars during peak hours to reduce congestion and to reduce friction during
the boarding and exiting of the transit car. Cyclists are otherwise advised to wait until all of the other passengers have
boarded and should enter only through the transit car doors with a bicycle symbol.
To deal with the problem of storage limitations on transit, a special customer relationship management program can be
designed for frequent users when they use the bicycle-on-transit service. Cyclists are requested to make a reservation before
using the bicycle-on-transit service so that the transit agency can pre-organize the specific space onboard for the reserved
cyclists. Cyclists can pass a specific gate and use a special route at the station to get on board. The accommodation facility can
detect whether or not places are occupied in the coach. The accommodation of place information on the transit coaches can
be supervised by the reservation system agent in advance to prearrange bicycle accommodations in transit. During the peak
hour, a special dedicated carriage can be added in case of an excessive demand. Moreover, the cyclists can pay an extra
charge when using bicycles-on-transit. The transit agency can reserve appropriate spaces for these pre-reserved cyclists
in transit and provide special accommodations for bicycles in transit. A loyalty program can also be designed for prioritizing
frequent users with permits in the bicycle-on-transit service to reserve specific accommodations in transit.
There are currently no relative articles concerning the mass rapid transit’s regulations on bicycle-on-transit use. Thus, we
recommend that the government authorities amend relative laws in the hopes of better regulating those passengers who
bring bicycles with them. The transit agency should provide bicycling customers with brochures and website information
outlining the rules and regulations regarding bicycles in transit. With respect to bicycle designers and manufacturers, the
design of a more portable and light folding bicycle that can more easily be moved in the intra-transit system is an essential
issue. This is especially important when considering female cyclists’ needs in terms of physical strength and ease of use.

6.2. Limitations and future research

As the success of bicycle integration grows, many other integration customer demands may also increase. Future studies
can use the service chain approach and the Rasch model to analyze other bicycle and transit integration strategies, such as
bicycle to transit, shared bicycle and two bicycles. Transit agency and the city government can address these specific cyclist’s
demands to design how to expand bicycle parking infrastructure and to launch a public bicycle sharing system. The finding
and addressing of various bicycle transit integration strategies can be used to establish a comprehensive bicycle transit inte-
gration program.
The survey used in the present study was only conducted in Kaohsiung, and this metropolitan area’s generalizability is
limited. Therefore, a future study can use our proposed Rasch approach to examine bicycle-on-transit users’ perceived incon-
venience in other metropolitan areas so as to recognize cultural differences and to adapt the study to a local context. Lon-
gitudinal analysis can also be performed using the Rasch model to make a comparison after launching various service
improvement strategies. Furthermore, the present study only investigates passengers who have used bicycle-on-transit ser-
vice; potential users of the service were excluded from the study. Future research studies can focus on examining the reasons
why potential users are not willing to use bicycle-on-transit service, and the analytical results can be implemented to derive
strategies to promote bicycle-on-transit usage.

Acknowledgments

The authors of this paper sincerely acknowledge the valuable suggestions of the Editor-in-Chief, Professor Deb Niemeier
and the anonymous reviewers, which have immensely helped to enhance the quality of the paper over its earlier version. The
authors also thank the National Science Council (NSC) of Taiwan, R.O.C. for financially supporting this research.

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