- 1 - Measuring Passenger Transport Quality by Disutilities Helcio Raymundo 1 , João Gilberto Mendes dos Reis 1 1 Paulista University, São Paulo, Brazil {helcioru@uol.com.br, betomendesreis@msn.com} Abstract. This paper aims to show the importance of measuring Passenger Transport quality by its disutilities. Even when the offer fulfills the demand, Passenger Transport (PT) imposes disadvantages on the passengers and to the society as it costs money, wastes time, is insecure, is uncomfortable and harms the environment. These disadvantages, also known as disutilities, influence customer choices and PT assumes the character of a negative consumption service. In order to demonstrate this new approach, a methodology for measuring PT quality by its disutilities is developed. A case study was conducted to present the methodology for the route Narita Airport, Japan, to Tokyo Central Station. The results show the cheapest option as Bus (Ordinary). Keywords: Passenger transport quality, Quality management, Public transport, Narita Airport Japan, Tokyo. 1 Introduction Passenger Transport (PT) history is intertwined with the history of humanity [1]. Human displacements are always due to the fact that human activities are not carried out in the same places and at the same time [2]. Therefore, PT has accompanied the challenges of overcoming spatial and temporal limits, generally by the progressive increase in the speed of transport modes [3]. Although PT exists to meet travel demand, it is not limited to provide mere displacements, but is part of the economic infrastructure and it has assumed a mobility dimension, as a social relationship linked to the change of place, i.e., how the members of a society deal with the possibility of themselves or others to occupy several places successively [2]. In this way, PT, in its collective or individual form, organized or not in systems and networks, provides people displacements. However, its performance is conditioned by different factors. These factors influence irregular and uneven quality, especially in the collective modes, because of its function of an economic activity [4]. PT also produces externalities, requiring market regulation, and justifying the intervention of the State [5]. PT expresses a kind of trade-off: it is efficacious because it fulfills its purposes, but it is not very efficient, because it has variable quality, produces externalities and disadvantages to the passengers and to the society. Even when the offer fulfills the demand with the highest level of quality possible, PT itself imposes disadvantages on those people who use it and to the society. Why does this kind of thing happen? Generally, because PT costs money and wastes time. Moreover, it is unsafe and uncomfortable, and it harms the environment, requiring urban space and consuming non-renewable energy. These disadvantages, called disutilities, influence customer choices and PT assumes the character of the negative consumption service, or, in other words, something that everyone needs, but nobody wants [6]. The concept of disutility has been utilized by Transport Economics initially to support studies of valuation of displacement associated with the choice of transportation modes or routes in individual transport. [7]. Savings in transport time, by definition, reduce the disutility associated to the total time of displacement. It is clear, then, that one of the fundamental issues of PT is disutility, which can be finally and simply defined as the difficulty in making a trip [8, 9]. The duality between level of service and disutilities might also explain why the entire structure of planning, investment, financing and regulatory framework of PT, in its public form, has been established in terms of an “answer” to the desires, needs and expectations of passengers, usually related to the characteristics of service [10]: (i) speed, (ii) comfort, (iii) regularity, (iv) reliability, (v) and (vi) reasonable fares. On the other hand, the individual modes of PT (pedestrian/walking, bicycle/cycling, motorcycle and car, including taxis, car sharing and carpool, paid or unpaid), even showing similar limits and producing the same externalities, hide themselves from this assessment, because they are not clearly classified and properly inserted as modes of transport in the network and transport systems. As a