Analysis of travel behaviors during floods in Ubon Ratchathani city, Thailand

Abstract

Cities in Southeast Asia frequently face urban floods, and transportation is often disrupted due to road closures. To reduce road transport vulnerability, the road network should be properly adapted for the flooding condition. To generate suitable adaptation measures for road transportation, travel behaviors under flooding condition, and their differences under normal conditions should be clarified. We aimed to understand the changes in travel behaviors caused by urban floods to compare with normal and flooding conditions in Ubon Ratchathani City, Thailand. A questionnaire survey was applied to understand the travel behaviors under both conditions, and its comparison revealed that under flooding, people prefer early departure time, and reduce the trip frequency depending on trip purpose. Moreover, we compared the route choice behaviors under both conditions using geographic information system (GIS) from collected data. Comparison with travel behaviors under both conditions, we clarified the change in travel behaviors under flooding and that differed from the affected extent depending on trip purpose.