Using AHP for evaluating travel mode competitiveness in long-distance travel

As a major achievement of public transport, highspeed railway (HSR) has brought about great changes on passenger travel behavior in the past decades. Meanwhile, average passenger trip distance are becoming much longer yearly. But not enough is known about passengers´ performance and evaluation of the four typical long-distance travel modes, namely, HSR, ordinary train, plane and coach because previous studies have mainly focused on inner-city travel. In this paper, an evaluation index system was established, including safety, economy, efficiency, comfort and punctuality. The survey data were collected and the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique was applied to investigate the transportation performances of the above four mode. The results revealed that ordinary train was the most competitive mode followed by HSR, coach and finally plane. Furthermore, the paper provides detailed findings and implications on the competitiveness of each mode over different attributes. This study may help the establishment of public transportation resource allocation and service market in the long-distance.