Unveiling the impact of bus network design on route choice: An empirical review from smartcard data

Most cities rely on the bus mode for their core public transport to provide coverage and flexibility and/or for cities with multimodal, access to other modes. There are different types of bus routes, including buses that are providing network services and express buses. Network bus route design can provide higher coverage to increase the accessibility of certain areas, but this route design might cause longer travel times and travel distances. Express buses are more direct and typically serve on main corridors. Each route type might meet certain policy goals (e.g., public transport coverage target) but the question is whether the design meets users’ needs? This study uses smartcard data as an innovative way to collect data to investigate bus route choice behavior with a latent class model so as to better understand how user heterogeneity might influence route choice results using one corridor with two bus routes (i.e., network bus and express bus) in Yilan County, Taiwan as the case study. Model results show that there are four groups of users that can be identified. In particular, one group suggests captive users (i.e., commuters) who are found to be insensitive to travel time and cost in the case study but focus on possible destinations. This paper concludes with some spatial-based route improvement strategies based on user types.