Impact of Transit-Pass Ownership on Daily Number of Trips Made by Urban Public Transit

Abstract

This paper investigates the factors influencing the decision to own a monthly transit pass and the impact ownership of the pass has on the daily number of trips individuals make by urban transit. Monthly transit pass owners in the Toronto Region are found to have a transit trip rate four times that of nonowners. A comparison of socioeconomic characteristics of transit pass owners and nonowners shows significant differences. A negative binomial model of daily transit-trip frequency is formulated. It is posited in the model structure that transit-pass ownership status is an endogenous variable in the transit-trip frequency model with the transit-pass ownership status modeled using a binary probit model. The estimation results show transit pass ownership status of an individual to be the single most important variable associated with the daily number of trips made by transit. Other variables influencing transit-trip frequency are accessibility and socioeconomic variables. Variables influencing the decision to own a transit pass include ratio of transit accessibility to auto accessibility at zone of residence, socioeconomic, and spatial variables.