Personalized Guidance Information and Travel Choice Behavior During Metro Service Disruptions: Evidence from Beijing, China

Guidance information plays an important role in influencing metro passengers’ travel choices and enhancing their travel experience during unplanned service disruptions. However, limited research has examined passengers’ behavioral responses to personalized guidance information in such contexts. This study aims to fill the gap and explore the impact of personalized guidance information on passengers’ travel choice behavior during unplanned metro service disruptions. First, we reconstruct the decision-making process of metro passengers under disruption scenarios and design personalized guidance strategies, followed by a stated preference survey to collect preference data. Using data from Beijing, China, a hybrid utility–regret model is developed to analyze how the content and frequency of personalized guidance information affect passengers’ travel choice preferences. The results show that recommended plans with explanatory information are more likely to be adopted, particularly when explanations are framed from the passenger’s perspective. A single notification serves as a timely reminder, whereas overly frequent messages may trigger annoyance and reduce effectiveness. These findings provide practical implications for the design of personalized guidance strategies, thereby mitigating the impacts of metro service disruptions.