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Unravelling commuters' modal splitting behaviour in mass transportation service operation

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Abstract

One important factor in determining whether commuters will use public transport is spatial accessibility rooted in the first-mile problem. This study explores commuter behaviour in terms of how they utilize bike-sharing to manage the first-mile accessibility of a public transportation station. Historical data from Taipei Metro smart cards were analyzed using RFM (recency, frequency, and monetary) segmentation models to identify commuter segments. This study reveals two significant findings: comprehensive spatiotemporal characteristics and homogeneous behavioural patterns are derived from clustering algorithms. The city's penetration pricing strategy for bike-sharing motivates modal splitting transfer between bike-sharing and transit (MSTBT). In addition, we observed a supplementary and utilitarian relationship between bike-sharing and the metro. A convenient transportation network improves first-mile accessibility, thus the frequency of MSTBT usage is a key metric for measuring engagement. The findings provide a useful reference for urban planners promoting the design and development of sustainable transportation systems.

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Availability of data and material

The data used and analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This research was funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan, R.O.C.; grant numbers: MOST 110-2221-E-033-033 and MOST 111-2221-E-033-029.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Chung Yuan Christian University, 200 Chung Pei Rd, Chung-Li Dist., Taoyuan, 32023, Taiwan, ROC

    Angela Hsiang Ling Chen & Wan-Ju Chang

  2. Department of Management, Marist College, Poughkeepsie, NY, 12601, USA

    Kuangnen Cheng

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  1. Angela Hsiang Ling Chen
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Contributions

Conceptualization, AH-LC; methodology, AH-LC, and W-JC; software, W-JC and AH-LC; validation, AH-LC, and W-JC; formal analysis, AH-LC, W-JC and KC; writing—original draft preparation, AH-LC and KC; writing—review and editing, AH-LC and KC; visualization, AH-LC; supervision, AH-LC; project administration, AH-LC; funding acquisition, AH-LC All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Angela Hsiang Ling Chen.

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Chen, A.H.L., Cheng, K. & Chang, WJ. Unravelling commuters' modal splitting behaviour in mass transportation service operation. Public Transp 15, 813–838 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12469-023-00330-x

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