Influence of bus service on the choice of residential location

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.