Bus and rail demand models for the Colombo metropolitan region

Abstract

Bus and railway modes are popular modes of public transportation in the Colombo Metropolitan Region (CMR). Bus services operate in all 33 Divisional Secretary Division (OSD's) or the CMK while 19 DSD's are served by railways as well. In the case of rail travel, large percentage of train travelers in the CMR, about 70% use monthly season ticket for travel. These tickets are provided at a discount of 40%. In the case of employees in most State sector institutions, the employer pays about 75% of this cost. The models that are available to estimate the demand for travel between the DSD's are found to be deficient due to inconsistency of the socio economic variables that are used in bus and rail models and the lack of a logical relationship to each other.