STUDY ON WILLINGNESS TO USE NON-MOTORIZED VEHICLES FOR TRIPS IN URBAN AREAS

Abstract

Study on vi II ingness to use non-motorized vehicles (NMVs) for trips, will help transportation planners to understand the infrastructural and policy needs to improve share of non-motorized vehicles. Willingness to use non-motorized vehicles is highly dependent on the socio-economic and demographic characteristics. NMVs are a very important part of transportation, being a developing and second populous country of the world we have to pay attention towards the use of it. This report aims at finding the attributes that affects the use of non-motorized vehicles, and developing models fbr willingness to use NMVs for mandatory trips. This will also help in knowing that whether we are designing the facilities in favour of NMVs or the urban sprawl has degraded the use of NMVs. Bhopal city was selected to carry out these studies. It is the city which is having two types of settlement, new Bhopal and old Bhopal. A revealed preference and stated preference survey was done in both the areas of Bhopal. The survey was done with the help of enumerators. All the demographic, socio-economic, and travel related attributes of the respondents were collected with their respective stated responses. In the stated prelirence survey, the choice of the NMV lane, the acceptable parking cost, parking distance, some incentive related policies etc. were asked to the respondents. The statistical difference between the two settlements is studied. Share of bicycles per household is more in old settlement which has a compact design. With the increase in household (I-Il-I) income, motorized vehicles (MVs) per Hi-I increases and NMVs per HI-I decreases. For both educational and work trips the share of 2-w was founded 60 percent. The share of walk for work trips in new and old settlement was 8% and 23%. The maximum acceptable parking distance was 500m and 250ni for new and old Bhopal respectively. The upper limit of the parking cost in new and old Bhopal for bicycle, 2-w and 4-w for 2-1101.11- parking was rupees 2, 5 and 10. So, if we want to make a vehicle restrictive policy then the parking cost for 2-w and 4-w should exceed Rs.5 and Rs.10. And the upper limit of the parking cost for whole day for bicycle 2-w, and 4-w for new settlement was Rs.9.5, 15, and 30 respectively. The upper limit for parking cost for whole day for bicycle, 2-w and 4-w was Rs.5.5. 14.5 and 25 respectively. To increase the share of NM Vs the vehicle restrictive policy should be made and it should be more than these values. Majority of the people erc not interested to in modal shift to NMT when 2% incentive was given. More than half of the respondents of both the settlements want a segregated NMV lane. Models were developed for work and educational trips. The logistic regression models were developed using Excel. For all the models the accuracy was more than 75 percent. The attributes that were found statistically significant in willingness to use non-motorized vehicles were trip length, age, bicycle ownership. education level, travel mode, and personal income. In the work trips of new Bhopal region as the education level and travel distance decreases, the willingness to use NMVs increases. In the old Bhopal work trips as the income and travel distance decreases the willingness to use NMVs increases. In the educational trips, as the age and distance decreases, and bicycle ownership increases willingness to use NMVs also increases.