Megan Kelly helps transit agencies, airports, and other transportation organizations understand traveler behavior and customer decision-making. While these sectors serve different populations and face unique challenges, many rely on similar market research approaches to understand changing travel patterns, improve customer experiences, and plan for future demand.
Those questions have become more important as travel behavior continues to shift. Transit agencies are paying closer attention to service reliability, safety, and the full customer journey, while airports are working to understand how passengers and employees access increasingly constrained facilities and how emerging options could change those trips in the future. In both cases, research can help move agencies beyond broad observations and toward a clearer understanding of what is shaping traveler choices and what changes could influence them.
We spoke with Megan about what RSG is learning across transit and airport research, from studying nonriders and changing customer expectations to airport ground access and Advanced Air Mobility (AAM). She also shared why asking more specific questions, and tracking customer perceptions over time, can help organizations make more informed decisions as travel behavior continues to change.
How has the focus of some of our clients in the transit and airport spaces shifted in recent years?
Travel patterns have changed significantly over the past several years, and our clients are trying to understand what those changes mean for how they plan and serve their customers.
Air travel has rebounded, but how and why people travel has shifted. Hybrid and remote work have changed business travel, while more travelers are combining business and leisure trips. That can affect when people travel, how long they stay, and how they get to and from the airport.
Transit ridership has continued to recover, but when, where, and why people are riding has changed. There’s also greater focus among our clients on reliability, safety, and the full customer journey, from accessing and waiting for transit through the onboard experience.
Ultimately, agencies are best served when they understand how people are traveling today rather than relying on assumptions based on how they traveled in the past.
How can better research help transit agencies make more actionable decisions?
Better research helps transit agencies move from knowing that something matters to understanding what they can actually do about it. It’s one thing to learn that frequency, reliability, or safety is affecting ridership. It’s much more useful to understand what specifically about those factors matters to people, how much it matters, and what would need to change to affect their travel decisions.
For example, people cite reliability and frequency as reasons travelers choose not to ride the bus. But simply knowing that people want more frequent service doesn’t tell an agency where to invest its limited resources.
Does a bus need to come every 15 minutes instead of every 30? Is the bigger concern that someone cannot reliably get to work on time? Are evening or weekend gaps the real barrier? And most importantly, would improving that aspect of service actually make someone more likely to ride?
That’s where thoughtful research design becomes important. Quantitative research can show how widespread a need is, identify differences across populations or geographies, and help agencies prioritize potential improvements. Qualitative research can help explain why those patterns exist and uncover considerations that may not come through in a survey alone.
Ultimately, the goal is to design both quantitative and qualitative research around the decisions an agency needs to make. Agencies have limited resources and cannot improve every aspect of service at once. Good research should help them understand which changes customers value most, which changes have the greatest potential to influence behavior, and where investments can have the most meaningful impact.
How can transit agencies prepare for changing travel behavior?
For transit agencies, there’s a lot of value in conducting research regularly to understand how customer needs and perceptions are changing. Tracking that information over time can help agencies identify opportunities to improve and be proactive in responding to what customers need. Ideally, an agency can look back and say, “We saw this trend emerging in our satisfaction data, so we were prepared and took steps to respond.” That kind of understanding comes from consistent research and listening to customers over time.
Research is also valuable after agencies make major changes to the system. Network redesigns are a good example. In Boston, part of the nonrider research we’re conducting is looking at perceptions of the bus system following the network redesign. The research can help agencies understand whether people are aware of what changed and whether those changes are meeting their needs. Maybe there’s an opportunity for more communication and marketing, or maybe the findings point to additional opportunities to improve the network. It’s about understanding how people experience and perceive the system as it operates today and using that information to guide what comes next.
Why should transit agencies study nonriders?
Transit is a public service that plays a role in the community whether someone personally rides it or not. It connects people to jobs, education, healthcare, and other opportunities, and can affect mobility, access, and quality of life across the broader community. Because of that, transit agencies need to understand how the entire community views their service, not just the people who currently use it.
At RSG, we administer surveys for clients where that broader perspective is the main purpose: How does our community view our service? Do people understand the role transit plays in their community? What do they value, and where do they think the agency could do better?
Studying nonriders can also uncover barriers that traditional rider surveys will never capture. Some people may be interested in using transit but cannot because the service does not meet their needs or is difficult to access. Maybe they do not feel safe getting to or waiting at a bus stop, the service does not go where they need it to go, or it does not operate when they need it. If agencies only survey current riders, they may never hear from those potential riders or understand what changes could make transit a viable option for them.
Many airports are also served by transit. Why is airport ground access important?
Ground access surveys, such as those we’ve conducted for Massport, help airports understand how passengers and employees get to and from the airport and plan for the transportation infrastructure and services needed to support them. Airports have to make decisions about roadways, curbs, parking, transit, shuttles, and other access options, and good ground access data helps inform those decisions.
These surveys also fill an important gap in other transportation data sources. Airports serve travelers who can be difficult to capture through traditional transportation data, including tourists visiting the region as well as people who live farther outside the immediate area but drive to the airport when taking a trip. Surveying passengers at the airport provides the opportunity to understand where these travelers are coming from or going to, how they get to and from the airport, and how they travel within the region.
Employees are another important part of airport ground access. Airports are major employment centers, with many employees working early mornings, late nights, and other times when transportation options may be limited. Understanding how employees commute and the barriers they face can help airports think about parking, transit, shuttles, and other options that make it easier for employees to get to work.
Finally, airports often must accommodate growing passenger volumes within significant built environment constraints. Curb space and roadway capacity are limited, parking cannot always continue to expand, and many airports have little room to grow. Understanding how passengers and employees access the airport helps airports plan for that demand and identify ways to move more people without simply adding more vehicles to already constrained roadways and curbs.
What could Advanced Air Mobility mean for airport ground access?
Advanced Air Mobility, or AAM, could eventually become another option for getting to and from airports, but it’s still difficult to know what its role in ground access will look like. There are a lot of factors that will shape demand, including cost, where services operate, total travel time, aircraft capacity, luggage restrictions, and how easily travelers can connect between AAM and the airport terminal.
There’s also a question of how travelers will perceive and respond to such a service. Research of the kind RSG has conducted for The National Academies can help us understand how people might choose between AAM and more familiar options like driving, transit, or ride-hail, and what combination of cost and convenience would make them consider something new.
One of the biggest challenges right now is simply awareness. AAM may be a familiar topic within the aviation and transportation industries, but many travelers still have little or no familiarity with eVTOLs or how an AAM service would actually work. Adoption of any new technology takes time. People need to become familiar with it, understand how it works, and see it operating before it becomes something they might realistically consider using. As AAM moves closer to widespread commercial use, traveler perceptions are likely to evolve as well, which makes it important to continue studying awareness, comfort, and willingness to use these services over time.
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Travel behavior is changing, and transit agencies and airport operators need research that helps them understand not just what people are doing, but why. Whether you’re studying riders or nonriders, evaluating airport ground access, tracking changing customer needs, or preparing for emerging mobility options, RSG can help turn traveler insights into more actionable decisions. Contact us to learn how our air passenger travel and transit market research services can advance your next project.
