Traditionally, transit market research has categorized passengers into two distinct groups: captive riders and choice riders. Market analyses that depend on such broad categories are likely to overlook important details about the needs and desires of their customer base. This study attempts to better understand the complexities of the different groups who take transit by using information from five years of customer satisfaction questionnaires collected by two Canadian transit providers. Employing a series of clustering techniques, the analysis reveals that nine market segments are present across different modes in both transit agencies. Three different overarching groups of transit users are identified based on income and vehicle access: choice users (~69%), captive users (~18%), and captive-by-choice users (~13%). The groups are consistent across transit modes and in different geographical regions and are generalizable enough to be widely applicable as a conceptual framework for segmenting and understanding public transit users.

中文翻译：

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一种新的市场细分方法：来自加拿大两个城市的证据

传统上，过境市场研究将乘客分为两个不同的类别：圈养车手和选择车手。依赖于如此广泛的类别的市场分析可能会忽略有关其客户群需求和期望的重要细节。这项研究试图通过使用由两名加拿大过境服务提供商收集的五年客户满意度调查表中的信息，更好地了解不同过境人群的复杂性。通过使用一系列的聚类技术，分析揭示了两个运输代理机构在不同模式下存在九个细分市场。根据收入和车辆的使用情况，可分为三个不同的总体运输用户组：选择用户（约69％），圈养用户（约18％）和圈养用户（约13％）。