Impacts of Public Bicycles on Young People's Travel Mode Choices with Consideration of Chosen Intentions

Abstract

This paper addresses a problem in evaluating the impacts of internet-app-based dockless public bicycles and public transport (i-PB&PT) on young people's mode choices considering their choice intentions. A method is proposed, based on the theory of planned behavior and structural equation modeling, to identify changes in the modal split and in travelers' willingness to buy and use private cars after having the intention to use the i-PB&PT mode. Guangzhou City was used as the study case, and an stated preference (SP) surveys was conducted. (1) The density of i-PBs was increased and, accordingly, the reduced cost of i-PB use strengthened travelers' intentions to choose i-PB&PT. For example, when the bicycle search time decreased from 4 to 1 min, the i-PB&PT modal split increased from 38.21% to 41.28%, whereas, if the transfer time between PT and i-PB use decreased from 3.5 to 2 min, the modal split of the combined mode increased from 40.72% to 49.59%. (2) Car ownership decreased from 1,190,465 (for the case without bicycles) to 650,556 as the travelers' intention (endogenous latent variable) to choose the combined mode became stronger. In particular, the values of the three exogenous latent variables (E––emotional attitudes, O––satisfaction, and S––subjective norms) increased (E = 2 to E = 5; OS = 1 to O = 4; S = 2 to S = 4). Therefore, the large-scale implementation and widespread use of the i-PB&PT model should significantly decrease car travel and transport emissions.