Here are some of the best questions for a citizen survey about public transportation quality, plus tips for crafting them to maximize insights. With Specific, you can create an AI-driven citizen survey in seconds—no experience required.
The best open-ended questions for citizen surveys about public transportation quality
Open-ended questions give citizens space to share their genuine thoughts. This approach brings up issues, stories, and ideas you didn’t expect, and it’s particularly valuable when you want deep context or to uncover what’s top of mind for people using public transportation. Here are our go-to open-ended questions:
What is your overall experience with public transportation in your area?
Which aspects of the public transportation system do you find most convenient or helpful?
What are the main challenges you've encountered while using public transportation?
How would you improve the current public transportation services?
Can you share a recent positive experience you had on public transit?
Can you describe a negative incident or frustration you've experienced when using public transportation?
How safe do you feel when using public transportation, and what would make it safer?
What do you think about the cleanliness and maintenance of public transport vehicles and stations?
How accessible do you find the public transportation options for people with disabilities or mobility needs?
If you could change one thing about public transportation in your area, what would it be and why?
Open-ended questions are perfect for revealing underlying preferences or pain points that rigid multiple-choice surveys often miss. With AI-powered conversational surveys, you can dig into these stories at scale, surfacing actionable insights.
Essential single-select multiple-choice questions to quantify public transport quality
Single-select multiple-choice questions shine when you need structured, quantifiable data—for instance, to benchmark satisfaction or identify common barriers. They’re also helpful as “conversation starters,” especially when people might find an open question overwhelming.
Question: How often do you use public transportation in your city?
Daily
Several times a week
Weekly
Rarely
Never
Question: How satisfied are you with the punctuality of public transport in your area?
Very satisfied
Satisfied
Neutral
Dissatisfied
Very dissatisfied
Question: What is the main reason you use or avoid public transportation?
Cost
Convenience
Environmental concerns
Reliability
Other
When to follow up with "why?" Always ask “why” after a respondent chooses an option to get specifics. For example, if someone selects “Dissatisfied” with punctuality, a follow-up like “Can you describe a time when delays caused problems for you?” opens the door for richer detail and actionable feedback.
When and why to add the "Other" choice? Use “Other” so respondents don’t feel boxed in. Follow-up questions after someone picks “Other” are gold mines for unexpected insights—sometimes the best suggestions or critiques come from those who don’t fit standard answers.
Should you use an NPS question in citizen surveys about public transportation?
NPS (Net Promoter Score) asks: “How likely are you to recommend public transportation in your city to friends or colleagues, on a scale from 0 to 10?” It's simple but powerful for tracking public sentiment—high scores signal advocates, while low ones highlight who’s frustrated. In a citizen survey, NPS helps governments or transit agencies quickly gauge public perception, and, with smart follow-ups, understand underlying reasons behind the rating. You can auto-generate an NPS survey for citizens in moments using Specific.
The power of follow-up questions
The real magic of a conversational survey is in its follow-ups. Instead of a static, one-way list of questions, AI-driven platforms like Specific use smart follow-up questions to probe deeper, clarifying ambiguous answers and nudging for more detail—all in real time. Follow-ups save time compared to manual email exchanges and make the survey feel like a real conversation instead of a cold form.
Citizen: “I don’t feel safe on the bus.”
AI follow-up: “Can you share what makes you feel unsafe while riding the bus?”
Citizen: “Sometimes the buses are late.”
AI follow-up: “How often does this happen, and how has it affected your day?”
How many follow-ups to ask? Usually, 2–3 follow-ups strike the right balance: enough to get richer context but not so much that it feels like an interrogation. Specific’s survey settings let you automatically end a topic once you have the insight you need—so you can adapt depth to your goals without added friction.
This makes it a conversational survey, not just a form. Respondents genuinely feel heard, which boosts engagement and data quality.
AI survey response analysis, sentiment analysis, and insights: With tools like AI survey analysis, it’s simple to synthesize and highlight key themes across all those open answers—so AI doesn’t just gather the data, it organizes it into instant, actionable insights, even for unstructured text.
These automated follow-up questions are a new approach—give it a try and experience how a truly conversational, insightful citizen survey feels!
How to prompt GPTs for public transportation quality survey questions
Want to brainstorm survey questions quickly? AI can help, but you need to write clear prompts. Start with:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for citizen survey about public transportation quality.
You’ll get better results if you give more context—who you are, what you want to learn, and why. For example:
I'm a city mobility planner creating a feedback survey for citizens about public transportation quality. Please generate open-ended questions to capture challenges, satisfaction, and improvement ideas.
To organize results, prompt for categorization:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
Then, focus on categories that matter most to you:
Generate 10 questions about “accessibility” and “service reliability” for a citizen public transport survey.
What is a conversational survey and why use AI?
A conversational survey mimics a real, back-and-forth interview, letting citizens chat naturally instead of just ticking boxes. Unlike traditional survey forms—which feel impersonal and are easy to abandon—AI-powered surveys dynamically ask tailored follow-ups, adjust tone, and keep respondents engaged through quick, context-aware questions.
Manual Surveys | AI-Generated Surveys |
|---|---|
Static questions, fixed order | Dynamic, adapts in real time to responses |
Slow to create, update, or analyze | Generated, edited, and analyzed in minutes |
High drop-off rates (40–55%) [2] | Completion rates as high as 70–90% [1] |
Manual, time-consuming analysis | Insight and trend analysis in minutes [2][5] |
Why use AI for citizen surveys? Efficiency, reach, and depth—AI surveys not only engage more people (with up to three-fold higher completion rates [1]), but also analyze responses instantly. By reducing data inconsistencies by 25% versus traditional methods [4], they ensure clearer, more actionable results. It’s the difference between getting surface-level stats and hearing what really matters to your citizens.
For more on building smart, personalized AI surveys, check out our step-by-step guide on how to create a public transportation quality survey for citizens—you’ll see how easy it is to start with Specific’s conversational approach.
See this public transportation quality survey example now
Want actionable insights from real residents—in record time? See a live AI survey example built for public transportation feedback, and experience seamless, conversational research that gets you answers (and stories) you wouldn’t hear with old-school survey forms. Specific makes the process easier, smarter, and far more engaging—for you and your citizens.