Study on travel choice behavior of medium and long distance intercity passengers in the context of air-rail competition

In the highly competitive environment of medium and long distance passenger transport market, enhancing passengers' willingness to choose air travel and market share is an important issue for airlines. This paper establishes a passenger travel choice behavior model that considers transfers between urban and intercity transportation as well as network information, focusing on air and high-speed rail. Based on the survey of passengers in Tianjin, partial least squares structural equation model and necessary condition analysis is employed to show that perceived tangibility, perceived inertia, perceived comfort, perceived convenience, perceived safety and perceived reliability of two travel modes have a positive effect on perceived value. Perceived value significantly influences satisfaction, while both satisfaction and perceived value of time significantly affect travel behavior intention. Network information guidance plays a moderating role between satisfaction and travel behavior intention. The moderating effect of transfer efficiency on travel choice behavior is only significant in air travel. Perceived tangibility, perceived inertia, perceived comfort, perceived value and satisfaction are the necessary conditions of travel behavior intention in air travel, while perceived comfort and perceived value are the necessary conditions of travel behavior intention in high-speed rail travel. Those findings are helpful to understand factors affecting travel choice behavior of air passengers, and provide important references for optimizing air services and formulating targeted market strategies.