The Impact of Beijing Subway’s New Fare Policy on Riders’ Attitude, Travel Pattern and Demand

Jiechao Zhang, Xuedong Yan, Meiwu An and Li Sun
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Jiechao Zhang: MOE Key Laboratory for Urban Transportation Complex Systems Theory and Technology, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China
Xuedong Yan: MOE Key Laboratory for Urban Transportation Complex Systems Theory and Technology, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China
Meiwu An: Saint Louis County Department of Transportation and Public Works, 1050 N. Lindbergh, St. Louis, MO 63132, USA
Li Sun: School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Achitecture, Beijing 100044, China

Sustainability, 2017, vol. 9, issue 5, 1-21

Abstract: On 28 December 2014, the Beijing subway’s fare policy was changed from “Two Yuan” per trip to the era of Logging Ticket Price, charging users by travel mileage. This paper aims at investigating the effects of Beijing subway’s new fare policy on the riders’ attitude, travel pattern and demand. A survey analysis was conducted to identify the effects of the new fare policy for Beijing subway on riders’ satisfaction degree and travel pattern associated with the potential influencing factors using Hierarchical Tree-based Regression (HTBR) models. The model results show that income, travel distance and month of travel have significant impacts on the subway riders’ satisfaction degree, while trip purpose, car ownership and travel frequency significantly influence the riders’ stated travel pattern. Overall, the degree of satisfaction could not be effectively recovered within five months after the new fare policy, but the negative public attitude did not depress the subway demand continuously. Based on the further time sequence analyses of the passenger flow volume data for two years, it is concluded that the new policy made the ridership decrease sharply in the first month but gradually came back to the previous level four months later, and then the passenger flow volume kept steady again. The findings in this study indicate that the new fare policy realized the purpose of lowering the government’s financial pressure but did not reduce the subway ridership in a long term perspective.

Keywords: Beijing subway; travel pattern; subway ridership; fare policy; HTBR model; time series analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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