Transport Service Policy and Mode Choice during Suburbanization

Transport systems offer substantially different services in city-suburb areas; this usually leads to different assumptions about user behaviour in transport mode choice. In this paper a simulation model is proposed to assess the effect of transport service policies on mode choice. The transport modes considered are public transport, including light rail transit (LRT) and bus, together with the private auto. In the three step traveler behaviour simulation model, the concept of generalised transport costs is used. Various transit incentives (fare, capacity, service quality, travel time, etc.) are proposed and their impacts on residents travel choice and suburban residential community form are quantified, using data on a typical city-suburb corridor in Beijing, China. The simulation results show that: (a) the fare reduction and capacity increase of public transport integrated with private car disincentives is necessary to improve system efficiency and suburb community attractiveness, particularly for those low income people; (b) without highway pricing, medium income residents will be encouraged to shift to private car while more high income persons might leave the suburb because of road congestion; (c) public transport improvement can attract more short and medium distance travelers, but the car users are not sensitive to travel distance.