Effects of Driving Habit on Change Mode in Response to Transportation Demand Management Policies

OOne of the reasons of driver's disinterest towards changing travel mode is that driving is a habit for them. The importance of the fact reveals more when transportation demand management (TDM) policies are implemented to reduce car-use. As in most efforts the aimed reduction in car-share wont achieved, researchers believe that the better we understand the factors affecting the mode choice behavior, the better we could estimate travel demand management policie's outcome. This paper pays attention to two groups of commuter drivers to the central business district (CBD) of Tehran, one with strong driving habit (who drive to work/school daily) and the other who just drive some of the week days to work/school. Using binary logit models, it shows that mode choice behavior of people with driving habit is different from others with no strong habit, when both groups face a TDM policy package. It also uses the results to suggest some relevant policies to increase mode shift from car for each of the two groups separately. Models show that commuters with driving habit do not change their mode in response to transit service improvement strategies, while others with no strong driving habit do so. According to the literature a defect in driving habit may cause commuters to think of other modes, so the present research suggests to eliminate the yearly pass to CBD to make such a crack in driving habit of the owners of the pass and make them to think over using other modes rather than driving daily.