Study on mode choice behavior of the commuters living in the suburban areas of Dhaka

Abstract

With the rapid growth of cities, an increasing number of trips are being generated from the suburban areas. Unlike the developed countries with high auto-ownership, commuters of the developing countries have to rely mainly on public transportation. Dhaka, being one of the fastest growing megacities in the world attracts a large number of commuters every day from its outskirts. The trip makers have to commute long distance during the peak period and choice of mode is very crucial for them. Although some researches have been carried out in various levels of scope exploring the intraurban mode choice behavior of the travelers of Dhaka, no studies have been conducted yet analyzing the mode choice behavior of the commuters where the trips are originated from suburban areas. In this backdrop, to fill the existing knowledge gap, this study attempts to analyze the mode choice behavior of the commuters who regularly travel to Dhaka from its suburban areas using public transportation. In this study, Dhaka-Narayanganj and Dhaka-Gazipur these two routes have been selected. Narayanganj and Gazipur are two major suburban areas located near to Dhaka, and commuters living in these cities have the both alternatives of bus and rail. A sample of 271 commutershave been surveyed. Socio-economic characteristics of the travelers and their travel related information which are likely to affect their mode choice have been incorporated in the questionnaire. To model the mode choice behavior of the commuters, Discrete Choice Analysis technique has been applied under the theory of utility maximization. Commuters’ mode choice usually involves a combination of multiple modes. Therefore, to draw a comprehensive scenario the main mode, access mode and egress mode choice models have been developed. For the main mode choice binary logistic regression and for the access and egress modes Multinomial Logistic Regression (MNL) have been applied in this study. The study has drawn some important findings which have not been addressed so far in conventional intra-urban mode choice studies. It has been found that suburban commuters spend a substantial amount of time for access and egress. Unlike intra-urban travel where most of the people get access to the main mode by walking or NMT (Nonmotorized Transport), for suburban travelers, MT (Motorized Transport) modes play an important role both in access and egress. Rail travelers usually travel longer distance and egress end and they are more likely to choose MT as egress mode than bus travelers. Different socio-economic characteristics of the travelers also affect their mode choice. The study found that higher-income commuters are more likely to choose the bus. A considerable number of commuters travelling from the suburban area to the main city are students. The model estimation suggests that students are more likely to choose train for their travel. Although the rail service is not satisfactory, a significant number of the commuters choose rail. Longer waiting time, additional transfer, unavailability of seats, lack of reliability contributes significant disutility to the rail travelers. It has been found that if the frequency of train can be increased and travel time can be reduced, then a significant number of commuters can be attracted towards commuter rail service.