The effects of travellers’ acceptance/satisfaction of unimplemented/implemented transportation demand management strategies on travel behaviour

Abstract

In the past decades, some major cities around the world have faced various traffic problems caused by the highway infrastructure supply shortage compared with overwhelming vehicle growth. Constructing new highway systems is unlikely to mitigate this problem since available land is limited. On the other hand, physically increasing the supply of transportation systems would cause increased traffic demand, and consequently, the traffic problems may not be improved or resolved. Therefore, managing traffic requires using Transportation (or Travel) Demand Management (TDM). TDM has been one of the main strategies used to improve traffic problems in major cities around the world. In this study, the level of satisfaction towards the existing TDM strategies for road users in Taipei city is explored. As for the strategies not yet implemented, the level of acceptance is also analysed. Finally, a stated choice experiment is carried out to capture the traveller's choice behaviour under different scenarios of TDM strategies. We apply the nested logit model to analyse the satisfaction and acceptability with executed and unexecuted TDM strategies, compare the similarities and dissimilarities within work, shopping and leisure trips and discuss the relationship between variables. We find that travellers agree that disincentive strategies, also known as ‘Sticks’, could solve the problems of traffic jams, but their acceptance or satisfaction is lower than their feeling of effectiveness of TDM strategies. Besides, shortening the travel time of mass transportation tools is an important factor to increase travellers’ willingness to use them.