An Investigation of Socioeconomic and Land Use Influence on Car Ownership in Yangon City

Abstract

Rapid growth in private vehicle ownership and usage is one of the key problems in the development of a sustainable transportation system for Yangon City. Car ownership depends on the land use patterns and socioeconomic characteristics of a city. Socioeconomic factors, including age, gender, income, house type, and family size also affect the choice of transportation mode and destination in the short and long terms, while the choice of housing location is affected in the long term. In this study, aggregate level land use data and disaggregate level individual and household data are used to determine the effects of land use and socioeconomic factors on household decisions to own zero, one, and two or more cars. This research models car ownership by the estimating multinomial logit model using SPSS (Statistical Packages for Social Sciences). The result suggests that income level, house type of a household, and the housing location have influence on car ownership in Yangon City. The car ownership level will be higher if the household number in the central business district (CBD), inner ring area, and outer ring area is increased. Increase in low income and normal income households will reduce the probability of car ownership in the suburban area.