Key Factors Influencing Vehicle Availability Associated with the User Waiting Time of Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) for People with Disabilities

Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) services for the safe and comfortable travel of people with disabilities have long waiting times and significant variations in time and space. Due to these characteristics, user dissatisfaction with DRT services continues to increase. This study aimed to identify factors that affect vehicle availability, which is closely related to waiting time, and to prepare measures to solve problems in waiting time. The data used for the analysis was composed of spatial units, so Moran’s I factor was used to test for spatial dependence. After confirming the presence of spatial dependence, spatial regression models optimized for spatial data analysis were estimated. As a result of predicting the model using five independent variables, four variables, Medical Infrastructure Concentration Index (MICI), Disabled Population Concentration Index (DPCI), Depot Size, and Demand Variability Index (DVI), were found to be statistically significant at a 95% confidence level, except for congestion level. The analytical results indicate that the frequency of vehicle operation is low in areas with a low population of the disabled, little medical infrastructure related to the disabled, and irregular DRT demand, which may affect increasing user waiting time. Therefore, supply-oriented policies to increase the number of available vehicles, such as adding more depots or deploying more vehicles, will contribute significantly to reducing user waiting time in these areas.