Influences of Tour Complexity and Trip Flexibility on Stated Commuting Mode: A Case of Mass Rapid Transit in Ho Chi Minh City

Abstract

The existence of complex tours could be a major barrier to the shift from car/motorcycle to public transport. To properly reflect such a barrier in evaluating the introduction of new public transport, a tour-based approach rather than a trip-based approach is required. However, to the authors’ knowledge, there is no study exploring the impacts of tour patterns on commuting mode choice where a “currently unavailable” travel mode is included as an alternative. This study proposes a simple method to identify the impacts of tour patterns on such stated commuting mode choice, where tour patterns are defined by the combination of tour complexity (represented by the number of trips in the stated preference (SP) survey) and trip flexibility (obtained in the revealed preference (RP) survey). For empirical analysis, we collected SP and RP data in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The results confirm the significant impact of tour patterns on mode choice decisions.