The use of association analysis in market segmentation for public transport: a case study of bus passengers in West Yorkshire, UK

Despite vigorous marketing efforts by an increasing number of UK public transport agencies [Hovell et al., 1975; Goldsack, 1984] very little has been published on the use of market research techniques in the field of urban public transport. This is in marked contrast to the USA where analyses of mass transit markets have been published for many years [e.g. Koutsopoulos & Meyer, 1976; Oram, 1983]. One technique adopted by many US operators has been that of market segmentation which involves the development of products tailored to match the requirements of specific sub-groups of consumers, as distinct from the market as a whole [Smith, 1956]. A market segment therefore comprises 'a subset of the population having specific characteristics that distinguish it from other population groups' [Meyer & Miller, 1984, p. 162]. The value of segmentation is that it allows far more acurate and cost-effective marketing decisions to be made than if those decisions had been made for the whole but incompletely defined market [Frank, 1974].