On the Relationship Between Travel Behavior and Price Sensitivity of Public Transit in Bangkok

抄録

When introducing rail-based public transport in developing countries, low fare prices are adopted from the viewpoint of public services which becomes a major operational obstacle. However, the rail transit systems in Bangkok have many passengers, despite of very high fare price. This paper examines the characteristics and behavior of public transportation users and analyzes their sensitivity to change in the fare price. For the self-elasticity, it is found that public transport users are generally inelastic. The value of the elasticity range is from -0.16 to -0.83 for various public transport modes. Various factors can affect public transit elasticities such as income level, ticket type, and access mode. The cross-elasticity of railway users in response to a price change of bus and van is 0.33, and to a change of taxi service is 0.62. Overall, the results revealed the possibility that Bangkok public transit can increase profitability by raising fares.