Abstract
The customized bus (CB) is an innovative and environmental supplementary mode of public transport, providing demand-responsive and user-oriented service to specific passenger groups with similar travel demands, especially commuters, based on online reservations. However, sufficient travel demand is essential for the successful operation of CB. The purpose of this study is to analyze the factors influencing the attraction of CB to commuters, which is tied to the ordered mode shift decisions, do no transfer to CB, remain undecided, and transfer to CB. A combination of revealed preference (RP) survey and stated preference (SP) survey is conducted among commuters in Beijing through online and offline questionnaire, collecting 1304 valid commuting demands. The ordered logit (OL) model and two-level mixed-effect ordered logit (MEOL) model are used to estimate the variable effects and the difference in five commute modes, including car, taxi, bus, rail, bus + rail, is considered. Common variables significantly influencing the transfer decision in all groups are specified in models, including familiarity to CB, seat availability, and gender. Meanwhile, travel cost, travel time, and transfer time of the current travel mode have positive effects on the attraction of CB. In addition, car ownership and accessibility to bus stations also influence the attraction of CB to certain group commuters. This paper can provide references to CB operators for formulating differentiation strategies and attracting more passengers in Beijing.
Highlights
Based on the combined revealed preference (RP) and stated preference (SP) data collected from a questionnaire survey for commuters in Beijing through online and offline questionnaire, this study attempts to analyze the factors influencing the commuters’ mode shift choices from the current commute mode to customized bus (CB) mode by applying standard and mixed-effects ordered logit model
The attractiveness of CB service is segmented into three parts by two thresholds appearing as ordered discrete responses of commuters, do not transfer to CB, remain undecided, and transfer to CB
Familiarity to CB has the strongest association with mode shift decisions, the more commuters know about CB, the greater willingness to accept the relatively new mode
Summary
Many cities around the world, especially large cities, are trying out a multitude of transportation policy and investment alternatives with the aim of alleviating traffic congestion and traffic-related environmental pollution caused by the increase in car ownership. At the same time, commuting travels show heavy reliance on the private cars because of the dispersion of jobs and amenities as a result of the rapid population growth and the improvement of urbanization. It becomes important to introduce alternatives for commuters. Public transportation has long been considered to build environmentally and socially sustainable and livable cities [2,3]. It sometimes cannot provide satisfactory service because of the inefficient facilities and more and more diverse and characteristic travel demands of commuters. A new innovative mode of public transport services named customized bus (CB) has been launched and rapidly promoted benefit from the development of information and tele-communication technology [1]
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