Mode choice behavior of commuters in Kandy, Sri Lanka

Abstract

Public transport mode share is the key contributory factor for the efficiency of an urban transportation system. However, commuters tend to shift from public transport modes to private modes due to various reasons. This causes an increase in traffic congestion in the road network resulting in a huge economic loss and environmental pollution. With the aim of providing a productive solution for these problems, this study is set to examine the factors that affect transport mode choice. Online and face-to-face interviews are carried out in Kandy district, Sri Lanka by using a structured questionnaire to obtain the mode choices of commuters and used to estimate the travel behaviour parameters in the multinomial logit (MNL) model. The respective coding was done in the RStudio platform, and the parameters were estimated based on the utility maximization theory. Adjusted likelihood ratio index, t-statistics and the respective sign of parameters are used to show the model accuracy. The outcome of the analysis shows that travel time, access time, waiting time, egress time and travel cost are the significant factors affecting the mode choice behaviour of commuters. All the parameters are obtained with a negative sign which implies that increasing the value of each parameter decreases the likelihood of choosing the relevant mode. The results of the scrutinized cross-sectional analysis and the estimated parameters suggest appropriate recommendations which can be used to improve the quality of local transportation planning.