How Land Use Affects Station Access Behaviors of Bus Rapid Transit Passengers in Bangkok,Thailand

Abstract

This paper provides empirical evidence on ways commuters access bus rapid transit (BRT) stations in Bangkok, Thailand. It is hypothesized that land use characteristics in areas near BRT stations affect passengers’ travel behavior, particularly the station access portion of the trip. The authors conducted interview surveys of BRT commuters and another survey of land use and transport network characteristics around BRT stations. It was found that the three most widely used modes of access were walking, motorcycle taxi, and bus, with average access distances of 373, 1,040, and 7,076 m, respectively. In addition, the logistic regression technique was used to model walking access mode choice as a function of land use characteristics around stations where passengers boarded the BRT, controlling socioeconomic and trip characteristics. It was found that land use characteristics, including residential, commercial, service, retail, and financial land use intensity in BRT station areas, affected passengers’ tendency to walk to BRT stations. The extent of the catchment area and the determinants of travel behavior have important implications for land use and transportation policies that aim to promote transit-oriented development, particularly those that allow for greater building density around transit stations.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Global BRT Data. EMBARQ –The World Resources Institute Ross Center for Sustainable Cities. Available at BRTdata.org. Accessed Nov. 3, 2014.

Netipunya

Transit Station Accessibility: A Case Study of Commuters in Downtown Bangkok. MS thesis. Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Chulalongkorn University, 2005.

Chalermpong

, and Wibowo

S.S.

Transit Station Access Trips and Factors Affecting Propensity to Walk to Transit Stations in Bangkok, Thailand. Journal of the Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies, No. 7, 2007, pp. 1806–1819.

Purahong

Access Improvement for Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Stations Using Non-Motorized Transportation in Yan Nawa District, Bangkok. MS thesis (in Thai). Division of Urban and Environmental Planning, Faculty of Architecture, Kasetsart University, 2011.

Saneewong Na Ayutthaya

Travel Behavior of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Passengers. MS thesis (in Thai). Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Faculty of Architecture, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, 2011.

Statistics Book 2013. Bangkok Metropolitan Administration. Strategy and Evaluation Department. Available at office.bangkok.go.th/pipd/07Stat(Th)/Stat_57_6M/Stat_Detail.htm. Accessed July 15, 2014.

Krungthep Thanakom Company, Limited. Bangkok Rapid Transit Statistics. Available at bangkokbrt.com/main.php. Accessed June 11, 2014.

Yongyat

Analysis of Access Trips to Bus Rapid Transit Stations in Bangkok. MS thesis. Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Chulalongkorn University, 2014.

Jiang

, Zegras

P.C.

, and Mehndiratta

Walk the Line: Station Context, Corridor Type and Bus Rapid Transit Walk Access in Jinan, China. Journal of Transportation Geography, No. 20, 2012, pp. 1–14.