Development of user personas for transit riders: Results from the Albuquerque Rapid Transit system

• Clarifies the study’s contribution by emphasizing differences in how users trade off common transit attributes. • Refines the methodological framework by positioning clustering as an exploratory tool for within-group heterogeneity. • Strengthens transparency in persona development by clearly describing the cluster-to-persona synthesis process. • Improves interpretation by integrating qualitative insights to explain quantitative patterns. As cities grapple with unsustainable growth, Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems offer a cost-effective, high-capacity alternative to reduce car dependency and improve equitable mobility. This study develops user personas for the Albuquerque Rapid Transit (ART) system to better understand barriers and motivations for BRT utilization. This study analyzed 329 survey responses and 25 in-depth interviews with ART users, non-users, and transit experts, applied employed k-means and hierarchical clustering to identify patterns in transit attribute preferences—such as bus stop access, bus reliability, comfort, cost, safety, trip time—across demographic subgroups. Five distinct user personas emerged, each reflecting different combinations of needs, experiences, and behavioral traits. Safety emerged as a consistently high-priority attribute across respondents, but cluster-level analysis revealed variation in how users balanced safety with reliability, accessibility, cost, comfort, and travel time. These findings suggest that persona-based approaches are valuable not because they identify entirely new priorities, but because they uncover meaningful differences in how users experience and negotiate common transit concerns. The study contributes empirical evidence from a mid-sized U.S. BRT system and demonstrates how mixed-method persona development can support more user-sensitive transit planning.