TCRP H-37 CHARACTERISTICS OF PREMIUM TRANSIT SERVICES THAT AFFECT MODE CHOICE: KEY FINDINGS AND RESULTS

摘要

This research seeks to improve the understanding of the full range of determinants for mode choicebehavior and to offer practical solutions to practitioners on representing and distinguishing thesecharacteristics in travel demand forecasting models. The principal findings are that awareness andconsideration of transit services is significantly different than the perfect awareness and consideration ofall modes which is an underlying assumption of mode choice and forecasting models. Furthermore,inclusion of non-traditional transit attributes and attitudes can maintain or improve the ability of modechoice models to predict the usage of premium transit modes while reducing the weight on modalconstants that vary between transit sub-modes. Additional methods and analyses are necessary to bringthese results into practice.This paper focuses on the key findings and results of the research of the value of non-traditionaltransit service attributes on modal choice, the influence of awareness and consideration of transit serviceon modal alternatives, and the importance of traveler attitudes on both awareness and consideration oftransit and on the choice of transit or auto in mode choice. The models estimated to support thesefindings are described, but not in detail, due to the space limitations, but are available in the TransitCooperative Research Program H-37A Final Report. The paper also documents the findings of theimplementation testing, which concludes that including path choices and non-traditional transit serviceattributes in mode choice models can reduce the weight of the modal constants.