Travel Demand Model for the Purpose of Education, Pune City, India

Abstract

Transport facilitates growth and interactions within and outside cities. Different countries follow different transport models. Increasing population, rising mobility rate and increasing trip length are responsible for increasing travel demand in India. Intention to participate in activities, demands travel, making it a derived demand. The overall purpose of this study is to examine the impact of socio-demographic factors on the mode of transport for education. The city of Pune in Maharashtra, India is chosen for the study. It is classified into clusters. Seventy-five households are selected from each cluster. For this, socio-economic classification (SEC) is used. The Ordinary Least Square Regression (OLS) model is used for analysis. ANOVA is used to test the effect of income level on the distance travelled for education. In the survey respondents have to give information on employment, education, income, age, sex and travel characteristics. The study found that for education, children generally tend to travel short distances. Children from poorer backgrounds, travel much shorter distances as opposed to children from well-to-do families. They either walk to school or use bicycles. Motorized transport either in the form of school buses or personalized vehicles such as cars or two-wheelers is the norm for children from higher income families. Therefore, their expenditure on travel for education is found to be greater. The paper brings forth issues concerning commuters, especially from a policy perspective. Challenges faced by users of non-motorized facilities such as pedestrian paths, and bicycling paths are brought forth explicitly. The paper looks beyond solutions by institutions which aim to move vehicles rather than people. Broader roads only encourage more use of personalized transport. Instead, differing modes of transport should ensure greater safety to children.