A conceptual framework for understanding behavioral factors in public transport mode choice in Southeast Asia

Prelims

Previous studies on factors influencing public transport usage have mainly focused on car users and been conducted in the Western world. In contrast, there are few studies on modal choice in motorcycle- dominant countries like Vietnam. This paper contributes to the state of the art by investigating data from 618 Vietnamese motorcyclists to understand psychological factors that influence the intention to use public transport among Vietnamese motorcyclists. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and structural equation model (SEM) are employed to explore psychological factors influencing public transport mode choice in Vietnam and to test the relationship between these psychological factors and the intention to use public transport. The results show that in addition to other factors in the theory of planned behavior (TPB), such as personal norms and perceived behavioral control, attitudes toward public transport mode choice are formulated from three components: instrumental attitude, symbolic/affective attitude, and social orderliness attitude. In addition, the SEM result also shows that only personal norms and social orderliness have a direct relationship with the intention to use public transport among five psychological factors. The findings from this paper have contributed both theoretical and empirical value to the existing literature in this field.

The COVID-19 pandemic has tremendously affected the whole of human society worldwide. Travel patterns have greatly changed due to the increased risk perception and the governmental interventions regarding COVID-19. This study aimed to identify contributing factors to the changes in public and private transportation mode choice behavior in China after COVID-19 based on an online questionnaire survey. In the survey, travel behaviors in three periods were studied: before the outbreak (before 27 December 2019), the peak (from 20 January to 17 March 2020), and after the peak (from 18 March to the date of the survey). A series of random-parameter bivariate Probit models was developed to quantify the relationship between individual characteristics and the changes in travel mode choice. The key findings indicated that individual sociodemographic characteristics (e.g., gender, age, ownership, occupation, residence) have significant effects on the changes in mode choice behavior. Other key findings included (1) a higher propensity to use a taxi after the peak compared to urban public transportation (i.e., bus and subway); (2) a significant impact of age on the switch from public transit to private car and two-wheelers; (3) more obvious changes in private car and public transportation modes in more developed cities. The findings from this study are expected to be useful for establishing partial and resilient policies and ensuring sustainable mobility and travel equality in the post-pandemic era.

Wira Wiri Suroboyo is a public transportation system operated by the Surabaya city government since 2023, aimed at reducing traffic congestion and environmental pollution caused by private vehicle usage. Despite its introduction, this mode of transportation has not yet achieved a significant shift among residents toward adopting Wira Wiri Suroboyo. To address this, the government must understand the behavior of Surabaya's residents regarding public transportation usage. Behavioral insights can serve as critical input for designing effective strategies to encourage people to transition to Wira Wiri Suroboyo. This research focuses on identifying the behavioral patterns of Surabaya residents who choose Wira Wiri Suroboyo as their public transport option, utilizing the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) framework. TPB provides an analytical model to evaluate behavior based on an individual’s perceived control over their actions. Data for the study was collected through questionnaires distributed to Surabaya residents who use Wira Wiri Suroboyo. The findings reveal that attitude, perceived behavioral control, and behavioral intentions significantly influence user behavior. However, the subjective norm variable does not substantially impact the behavioral intentions of the Surabaya community in this context.

The research examines young commuters’ (age 18–25 years) decision-making process in choosing a mode to commute. The study presented here characterized young commuters’ travel decisions in relation to choosing to use a private car or public transportation for commuting travel. To contribute to greater understanding, the theory of planned behavior (TPB) was used to investigate commuting mode choice, particularly from a social-psychological perspective. Disaggregated travel data was collected from an in-depth survey of young commuters ( n = 3171) who lived in inner and metropolitan Melbourne, Australia. Respondents were clustered based on their usual commuting mode (private car or public transportation). The questionnaire was designed to capture information on young commuters’ attitudes toward their commuting mode, social environment, and travel behavior. Linear regression analysis and binary logistic regression were used to predict intention to choose a commuting mode and the actual mode choice, respectively. Results suggest that young commuters who used a private car held a positive attitude toward the mode. On the contrary, public transportation users had few positive beliefs about commuting by public transportation. Convenience and flexibility were the most valued advantages that the private car offers as a commuting mode. For public transportation users, reliability of the commuting mode was more important than other factors, but they did not agree that public transportation provides reliability. The paper includes a discussion on how the implications of these results can influence government policies and strategies in an effort to increase commuting by public transportation.

Modelling life trajectories and mode choice using Bayesian belief networks

Securing public transportation ridership is critical for developing a sustainable urban future. However, many modern and growing cities are facing declines in public transport usage. Existing systems for analyzing and identifying weaknesses in public transport connections face major limitations. In cities, origin-destination (OD) matrices--which measure the flow of people between different geographical regions--are often generated using household surveys, which are time consuming and lack spatial and temporal accuracy. Focus in more recent research has been drawn towards using cellphones to overcome these limitations. In this article, we show that urban mobility patterns and transport mode choices can be derived from cellphone call detail records coupled with public transport data recorded from smart cards. Specifically, we present new methods to determine the spatial and temporal variability of public and private transportation usage and transport mode preferences across the dense, metropolitan city-state of Singapore.The cellphone dataset consists of location data of 3.4 million anonymized users of SingTel, Singapore's largest telecommunications company with a market share of 45.3%. The data were recorded during a two-month period from mid-March to mid-May 2011. A call detail record (CDR) includes the location (spatial resolution of 400 m) of the cell tower each cellphone connects to and was created in the case of following network events:• a phone call was initiated or received (at the beginning and at the end of the call).• a short message was sent or received.• the cellphone user accessed the data network (for example, to open a website or retrieve emails).By applying a clustering detection algorithm to these call detail records, we detect individual trips and extrapolate the overall mobility of people between the 55 administrative districts of Singapore (taking into account the market share of SingTel and the cellphone penetration of 144 %). The mode share of private transport usage is then derived by computing the difference between the estimated overall mobility and the traces of 4.4 million public transportation smart card users during the same time period.We validate out data mining approach using the results from Singapore's Household Interview Travel Survey (HITS): Our results revealed that there are 3.5 million (HITS: 3.5 million) inter-district trips by public transport and 4.3 million (HITS: 4.4 million) inter-district trips by private transport (including taxis). Private transport usage dominates in regions without access to a subway line (see Figure 1). Along with classifying which transportation connections are weak or underserved---where people prefer to take private rather than public transport---the analysis shows that the mode share of public transport increases from 38% in the morning to 44% around mid-day and 52% in the evening.The value of deriving such patterns using cellphone call detail records have important implications not only for urban and transportation planning, but also for other domains such as disease control in cities. As humans serve as the primary and secondary vectors of many infectious diseases, understanding from where people arrive and depart and by which transportation modes people are traveling, we have the potential to model how and where diseases might be spreading and from where they might originate.

Influence of psychological factors in mode choice decision making: A structural equation modeling approach

The role of deliberate planning, car habit and resistance to change in public transportation mode use

A discrete choice analysis of transport mode choice causality and perceived barriers of sustainable mobility in the MENA region

An increase in population generates increasing in travel demand. In Malaysia, public transport become an important modes of transport that connection people. This paper presents behavioural intention to use public transport especially public bus based on Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). A questionnaire survey was conducted to identify factors that contribute and influence users to use public bus and to determine factor that most dominant using TPB model. A total of 282 questionnaires were distributed in selected area of Batu Pahat and Kluang. Correlation and regression analysis were used for this study. Results show that the Attitude toward public transport is the most dominant factor compared with Subjective Norm and Perceived Behavior Control that influencing users to use public bus. Majority respondents were agreed that they prefer to use public bus because it is cheap to travel and no other choices of other transfer modes. As for the recommendation, this study can be extended in future as part of strategic sustainable transportation system in Batu Pahat and Kluang areas.

To advance public transportation development, it should be explored from the perspective of behavioral analysis. This paper adopts the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to study public transportation choice behaviors. The first aim is to explore the necessity of dividing subjective norms into an injunctive norm and a descriptive norm and to explore their roles in predicting behaviors. The second aim is to investigate the mechanism related to several key variables and their role in forming the intention to take transit. The third aim is to develop appropriate improvement strategies through the analysis of behavior, subjective norms, or perceived control beliefs. Empirical data were collected by distributing online and hard-copy questionnaires in Shanghai, China. A sample of 393 valid questionnaires was collected. An ordinal regression model was constructed based on the empirical data. The results reveal that TPB can be applied to explain choice behaviors with respect to public transport. Among the factors affecting travelers’ intentions, attitude toward public transport is most decisive. Descriptive norms seem to have more direct effects on public transport use behaviors on the basis of the correlation coefficients. Injunctive norms, at least in this case, have a more obvious influence on travelers’ intention to take public transport than do descriptive norms. Furthermore, on the basis of belief analysis, some critical approaches to improving the competitiveness of Shanghai public transportation are proposed that can be used to develop people-oriented public transportation policies and strategies in other similar cities.

Commuters tend to shift from public to private transport modes due to various reasons. This results in an increased traffic volume in the urban road network. The ultimate consequence is traffic congestion which creates massive economic losses and adverse environmental pollution. To provide a feasible solution for the above problems, this study is set to examine the factors affecting transport mode choice. Factor analysis was used to identify the factors influencing the mode choice variability of the commuters. Parameter estimation is done using the Multinomial Logit (MNL) model based on the utility maximization theory. The adjusted likelihood ratio index is used to show the model fits. Also, t-statistics and the respective sign of parameters are used to show the validity of estimated parameters. The outcome of the factor analysis shows that age and occupation significantly affect the public transport mode choice under personal characteristics. For private mode choice, the contributing factors are gender, age, occupation and monthly income. Trip distance, invehicle travel time, and travel cost are significantly influencing both public and private transport mode choices. Results of the estimated parameters and elasticity analysis suggest that more commuters can be attracted to public transport by reducing the total travel time of buses.

Effects of proactive and reactive health control measures on public transport preferences of passengers – A stated preference study during the COVID-19 pandemic

A study on the factors that influenced the choice of transport mode before, during, and after the first lockdown in Milan, Italy