Is It Possible to Compete With Car Use? How Buses Can Facilitate Sustainable Transport

Abstract

The need to prioritise the development of bus transport has attracted widespread attention in the literature. This study aims to investigate how buses can be used to facilitate a sustainable transport system, using Heze, in China, as a case study. Our results show that older people, unemployed residents, and those whose points of departure or arrival are within the city centre are more likely to travel by bus. In addition, compared to other travel modes, travel by bus tends to become more popular as travel time and distance increase. We predict the probabilities of people using buses for journeys of different travel times and over varying distances and rank them in order. The results suggest that bus travel could potentially replace car travel when the travel time is between 15 and 30 minutes or the travel distance is more than 9 km. In terms of policy implications, governments and planners should pay more attention to creating additional bus lanes, extending the bus network and its infrastructure, optimising bus-related facilities and services, particularly for older adults, and increasing the punctuality and reliability of bus travel.