On the move: understanding passenger experience and journey integration in multimodal travel at Europe’s airports

The rise of multimodal travel underscores the need to design a cohesive journey that considers the passenger experience from start to finish. Achieving this requires integrating diverse travel modes and coordinating infrastructure and mobility services, especially at major transport hubs. This research employs qualitative methods to study passengers’ experiences in multimodal travel involving air transport in-depth. Using autoethnographic and interview methods, researchers and practitioners undertook a total of 26 multimodal journeys involving air transport at four European airport hubs to study the travel phases these journeys and factors influencing the experience. The findings indicate that multimodal journeys involving air transport differ significantly from traditional air-to-air journeys. Multimodal passengers encounter friction as they must cross more system boundaries compared to single-mode travel, with each system governed by its own distinct rules and regulations. Consequently, multimodal journeys require different passenger flows, infrastructure, and services than air-to-air journeys. This research identified eight journey integration factors that impact the passenger experience of multimodal journeys involving air transport: (1) journey explanation and preparation, (2) personalized and pro-active assistance, (3) wayfinding, (4) proximity of modalities and facilities, (5) multimodal transfer services, (6) balanced transfer time, (7) waiting environments, and (8) in-travel comfort. Importantly, the passenger experience in multimodal journeys involving air transport is influenced by passengers’ expectations and cannot be understood in isolated segments, as travel phases are interdependent. This highlights the importance of designing multimodal journeys involving air travel as cohesive units and emphasizes the crucial role of collaboration among actors across transport systems.