Abstract:
In Dhaka city, both housing and transport sectors have been facing serious challenges to
meet the demand of excessive population. In such a situation, it has become necessary to
take required steps for improving the condition. No study has been conducted yet to
make an enhanced harmonization among these two vital sectors. However, such studies
are also important for devising any types of regulating mechanism and policy
formulation. With this view in mind, this study focuses on the importance of transport
sector in residential location choice. This study identifies the influential factors of
residential location choice, finds out the importance of bus service including its different
aspects in choosing residential location and also identifies the problems faced by the bus
users for giving or not giving importance to the bus service in choosing residential
location.
The study has been conduced on bus users and identifies various factors associated with
residential location choice. Among these factors, house rent is the most significant
factor which is followed by housing characteristics, bus service and so on. A model also
has been developed to indicate housing location choice patterns categorizing the Dhaka
City into low, medium and high rent areas. The model shows that the people of low and
medium rent give highest priority to house rent and bus service with compared to the
people of high rent area.
The study also finds out the importance level of various transports related aspects. The
analysis indicates that people who give significant importance to bus service give more
importance to frequency of service whereas people, who do not give significant
importance to bus service, give highest importance to transport fare in choosing
residential location. The study also shows that the magnitude of the problems faced by
the bus users for giving or not giving importance to bus service in residential location
choice is almost different for both of the groups. Besides these, the people who chose
residential location considering bus service also enjoy some benefits in terms of saving
their time as well as cost that make their life easy, comfortable and safe.
Finally it can be said that in case of Dhaka city bus service has significant influence in
choosing residential location. The result of the study may be helpful to initiate new
policies towards a better coordination among housing and transport sectors of the city.
