Systematic literature review on demand-responsive transport services

The issue of climate change, its impact on the world, and the emerging responsibilities for societies, states and the public are omnipresent in public as well as scholarly debates. In this context, transport is often singled out as a majorly important driver of climate change with 24 % of carbon emissions worldwide coming out of this sector (IEA, 2021). Besides greener fuels and modes of transport in general, increasing public transport use is regarded as a powerful means to tackle the reduction of carbon emissions (Hodges, 2010; The World Bank, 2014; UNFCCC, 1992).

Considering that in the EU, 29 % of citizens live in rural areas - a share that has been rising (Eurostat, 2018, 2020) - and that the provision of classic public transport in these areas is difficult and more importantly inefficient, possible solutions need to be explored urgently. One such solution are demand-responsive transport services (DRT), defined as intermediate services reacting on user demand and not bound to set times or courses (Ambrosino et al., 1997). Both public authorities and, increasingly so, scientific publications view DRT as alternative means of public transport in rural areas. Despite this focus, scientific investigations in this domain have fallen short of substantial contributions to methods to measure DRTs potential to contribute to the reduction of carbon emissions and equally socio-scientific approaches to explain and increase the user acceptance of DRT. Against this backdrop, the present artlicle presents a systematic literature review (1) to give an overview of the development of the reseach field with a particular focus on user-oriented research, the applied explanatory frameworks, design and location of performed empirical studies. (2) It further examines the findings with respect to population density of study areas and (3) concludes by systemising the existing research gap regarding DRT, user acceptance and rurality.