Exploring the Commuters’ Willingness-to-Pay and Its Influencing Factors for an Improved Public Bus Service in Dhaka City

Abstract

Improved transportation services are a crucial component of urban growth, particularly in emerging cities like Dhaka. Ensuring an improved public bus service quality is a challenge for the city’s transport planners and policy makers. Nevertheless, this challenge can’t be met without the support of the residents of this city. This study intends to evaluate the commuters’ willingness to pay (WTP) for an improved and better public bus service quality in Dhaka city. It also attempts to explore the factors affecting the commuters’ WTP amounts. In order to accomplish the study’s goals, a stated preference survey was designed to enquire into the whys and wherefores of female passengers’ harassment on public buses and also to prefer some influential service quality features. WTP values of respondents were calibrated using binary and ordinal logistic models, and these models were developed using SPSS version 26. The results indicate that the majority of respondents were willing to pay more for better service facilities, and they point to security as the most important factor in determining how much extra fare commuters are willing to pay. The results also demonstrate that commuters’ WTP amounts are highly influenced by the respondents’ monthly income. Results from this study have important policy implications, such as protecting women’s safety on public transportation and taking commuters’ socio-demographic characteristics into account before enacting any legislation or increasing fares.