Longitudinal analysis of changes in the behavior and attitudes of college undergraduates toward public transportation

Understanding the attitudes and perceptions of a community's members towards public transportation is valuable when designing and delivering service. In this paper, the design and descriptive statistics for the first two waves of a longitudinal study of students enrolled at North Dakota State University are presented... Analysis of first-year data using a binary probit model finds that vehicle access, on-campus residence, prior transit use when traveling, and use of transit by family and friends significantly influence ridership behavior. Ridership by members of the survey cohort increased from 33% during their freshman year to 45% during their sophomore year.