Suburban travel mode choice considering transit accessibility of stops in public transport

To analyze the influence of the transit accessibility of stops on the travel mode choices of suburban residents,the number of the lines passing by the stops within an accessible range of the resident origin and destination(OD)points and the average waiting time are used as the indexes of the transit accessibility of stops.Due to the correlation between travel time and accessible range,the transit accessibility of stops is contrasted as piecewise variables constrained by travel time.Taking the Jimei District of Xiamen,China,as an example,a binary logistic regression model of the suburban travel mode choice is constructed.The results show that it is necessary to construct transit accessibility of stops as piecewise variables.With a higher transit accessibility of stops,more residents will choose public transport.The choice of the travel mode is correlated with family attributes and personal characteristics.Morning and evening peak hours and travel distance have little effect on the choice of travel mode.Compared with the travel in urban areas,residents often chose public transport for travel within the suburbs.This research provides a basis for encouraging public transportation priority policies and decision making for transport planners in the suburbs.

A tour-based analysis of travel mode choice accounting for regional transit service

The aim of this work is to explore the impact of regional transit service on tour-based commuter travel behavior by using the Bayesian hierarchical multinomial logit model, accounting for the spatial heterogeneity of the people living in the same area.With two indicators, accessibility and connectivity measured at the zone level, the regional transit service is captured and then related to the travel mode choice behavior. The sample data are selected from Washington-Baltimore Household Travel Survey in 2007,including all the trips from home to workplace in morning hours in Baltimore city. Traditional multinomial logit model using Bayesian approach is also estimated. A comparison of the two different models shows that ignoring the spatial context can lead to a misspecification of the effects of the regional transit service on travel behavior. The results reveal that improving transit service at regional level can be effective in reducing auto use for commuters after controlling for socio-demographics and travel-related factors.This work provides insights for interpreting tour-based commuter travel behavior by using recently developed methodological approaches. The results of this work will be helpful for engineers, urban planners, and transit operators to decide the needs to improve regional transit service and spatial location efficiently.