Application of Distance Decay to Investigate Bicycle Trip Lengths in Small sized Indian Cities

摘要

Rapid growth in developing countries without adequate public transportation facility has led to increased dependence on motorized vehicles. However, absence of bicycle friendly infrastructure has influenced modal shift from Non-Motorized Transportation mode to Motorized transportation mode, leading to congestion, delay, pollution, higher accident rates and increased demand on fossil fuels. With all these concerns, non-motorized mode, such as bicycle, is gaining importance as a viable choice in urban transportation, in general in small sized cities in particular due to shorter trip length. In order to examine individual travel behavior and investigate the market for Non-Motorized Transportation small sized cities, impedance of travel distance of bicycle has been studied across various population subgroups using the concept of distance-decay. The data derived from Travel-Behavior survey in Kharagpur is used for the analysis. Result reveals that travel behavior vary significantly across several categories. Examination of decay curves reveals that 2-3 km is the equilibrium distance for bicycling, as around this trip length different sub-groups perceive the benefit of bicycle usage equally. Marginal decrease in trip patronage with 1 km increase in trip length has been computed and rate of change of this marginal decrease has also been computed and compared across various user groups, trip purposes and socio-economic characteristics. The overall analysis shows that as most of the trips are shorter in length there is a huge market for promoting bicycle as safe and sustainable mode of transport and these results can be effectively used for planning of bicycle facilities.