In March 2017, Kramatorsk started work on the Public Transport Efficiency Project which is implemented within the framework of the USAID Municipal Energy Reform Project in Ukraine. The objective of the project is to develop recommendations for improving transport infrastructure, and to improve the efficiency of municipal transport operations.

In March-April 2017, a sociological survey of residents was conducted in Kramatorsk concerning their transportation during the past day, transport availability and their assessment of the functioning of public transport.

The total number of the respondents was 1,685 people; they were selected on a quota basis.

An interviewing working group was set up to conduct this survey. It consisted of 58 persons – representatives of 42 secondary schools and kindergartens, universities, colleges, specialized schools, as well as condominium chairmen. All members of the working group were trained on how to select respondents and conduct the survey. The interviewers conducted telephone and face-to-face interviews with city residents, with detailed records of all their rides and walks, according to a methodology developed by the USAID Municipal Energy Reform Project in Ukraine.

Use of Public Transportation and Coverage with Private Vehicles

Most often, city residents use public transportation for transportation in the city – this response was provided by 79% of the respondents, 11% use cars, 1% use bicycles; 9% of the respondents indicated that they mostly walk on foot.

The respondents were asked about fare payment methods in the public transport. 80% of the respondents indicated that they pay for each trip separately. 24% have a payment privilege and ride free of charge; 3% – although they are entitled to free travel, still pay the driver.

The survey conducted allowed The Project to assess the level of coverage of the city residents with auto-, motor-vehicles and bicycles. 63% of the respondents indicated that their family has no car, 34% had one car, 3% of the respondents had two or more cars. Private transport owned by the city residents is rather outdated: 25% of cars were manufactured before 1992; 50%, before 2005; 74% – before 2007. Only 6% of vehicles were less than 5 years. Consequently, the outdatedness of private vehicles in Kramatorsk is a significant factor in increasing harmful emissions into the air and deteriorating the environment. 

The results of the survey show that 55% of the respondents’ cars run on gasoline; 19% on gas; 9% on diesel fuel, 17% combine gasoline and gas. 31% of the respondents have a driver's license; 69% do not have one.

The respondents were asked if they could use yesterday a car belonging to their family. 53% answered "yes, without any restrictions"; 15% answered "yes, after coordination with other family members"; 32% said they could not.

More than half of the respondents said they needed less than 5 minutes to get to the car park; 85% of the respondents could reach the car in less than 15 minutes. This means that private transport is fairly accessible for daily use.

95% of the respondents said that their families do not have motorcycles, 5% have a motorcycle or a motorbike.

In the families of 70% of the respondents no one uses bicycles. However, 22% of the respondents have one non-kids bike in the family, and 8% have several such bikes.

Satisfaction/Dissatisfaction with Public Transport Operation

One of the most important indicators of public transport operation is satisfaction of the residents with the quality of the transportation services. The survey indicates that 9% of the respondents are fully satisfied with work of the public transport; 50%, rather satisfied; 35%, rather dissatisfied, and 6% were fully dissatisfied (Figure 1).




Figure 1.  Percentage of responses to the question: "Are you satisfied with public transport operation?"

For an in-depth analysis of the state of satisfaction/dissatisfaction with public transport operation, the Satisfaction Index (SI) was calculated as the weighted average assessment, where the following grades are assigned to the degrees of satisfaction/dissatisfaction: 1 - "fully satisfied"; 0.5 – "rather satisfied"; -0.5 - "rather dissatisfied"; -1 – "absolutely dissatisfied". Consequently, SI can range from -1 to 1, and it will be "-1" if all the respondents are completely dissatisfied with the public transportation, and will be "1" if everyone is fully satisfied. The SI allows the state of satisfaction/dissatisfaction with the work of public transport on average in a certain group of respondents to be assessed and to compare the subgroups with each other on this indicator.

In general, the city has an SI of 0.10, which means that the number of city residents satisfied and dissatisfied with the work of public transport is almost equal, with some slight advantage in favor of those who are satisfied with its work.

The state of satisfaction with public transport differs depending on the place of residence of a respondent: the largest number of dissatisfied people are among the residents of Krasnohorka, Vesele (SI has a negative value of -0.28), Novyi Svit (-0.19), Shabelkivka (-0.09) and Ivanivka (-0.08). The largest number of people satisfied with public transport reside in the micro-districts of Lazurnyi (SI is 0.34) and Sotsmisto (0.23) (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Index of Satisfaction with work of public transport depending on respondents’ place of residence

Satisfaction/dissatisfaction with public transport operation to a certain extent depends on:

•    whether the respondent has to pay fare. Thus, there are more fully and partially satisfied people among those who enjoy privileges and ride for free, a little less among those privilege users who have to pay the driver, and the least among those who pay for each ride;
•    the respondent’s age, but this dependency is non-linear. The Satisfaction Index has relatively high values in the young age groups, the lowest among those aged 25 to 49, and then increases again in age groups after 50. Consequently, the most dissatisfied with the work of public transport among people of working age are those who have to get to and from work predominantly during rush hours;
•    the respondent’s education. A pattern was revealed: the higher is the level of the respondent’s education, the higher is the index of satisfaction with the work of public transport. Moreover, this indicator does not depend on the respondent's gender and level of income;
•    the number of rides per day. There is an obvious trend: the more a respondent has to move around the city, the lower is his/her satisfaction with public transport;
•    the status of the respondent's employment. Relatively higher SI values are found among pensioners, housewives, but relatively lower values are found among those who work or combine work and study. One of the possible reasons for this situation is the need for employed persons to use public transport at rush hours more often in order to arrive on time, and this sometimes becomes a difficult task if there are problems with transport.

What Is More Important – Comfort or Speed of Transportation?

During the survey, the respondents were asked to score importance of certain conditions of a ride in public transport: from 1 point to 5 points, where 5 is the most important, and 1 is not important.

Average scores for the importance of travel conditions are presented in Table 1. The residents said that the most important condition is speed/time of ride,  the amount of time spent on waiting for public transport came second, cost of travel came third, and transportation safety ranked fourth. Comfort, seat availability, air conditioning/heating of the cabin proved to be the least important conditions out of those mentioned in the interviews.

Table 1

Average score and rank of importance of certain conditions of a ride in public transport (score from 1 point to 5 points, where 5 is the most important, 1 – not important)

The thoughts about what travel conditions are most important vary to a certain extent in age groups. For example, for young people, the most important conditions were time of waiting for transport and speed of transportation, while for the elderly respondents it was the time spent waiting for transport and the cost of transportation.

Overall, the residents prefer faster, cheap and safe transportation in the city to comfort.

Where Do We Hurry to?

The respondents provided detailed information on all their transportations during the previous day in the course of the survey. A total of 1,685 respondents described the 3,491 city journeys. Over 10% of the respondents did not leave the house at all during the day, and the vast majority of respondents (58%) made two journeys. An average result is 2.09 journeys per person.

The vast majority of the first journeys of the day started at home (96%); 1.5% – from work. A small proportion of the respondents – up to one percent – travelled from the dachas, from outside the city, returned from their friends and acquaintances.

The most common purpose of the journey was to return home (41.2% of the total number of journeys had such a purpose); in the second place – to get to the place of work (19.0%); in the third – shopping and/or receiving services (13.0%). Almost the same number of journeys (3.8-3.9% of the total number) was aimed at visiting hospitals, friends/acquaintances and travelling around the city for business matters. The percentage of respondents' transportation according to their purpose (except for travelling home, to work, for shopping and services) is shown in Figure 3. 

Figure 3. The percentage of respondents' transportation by purpose (except for travelling home, to work, for shopping and services)

The data obtained from the sociological research will form the basis for modeling the city transport system and developing recommendations for the sustainable energy development of the transport sector in Kramatorsk.