Increasing public transport market share and a reduced proportion of car driver trips is a major goal of transport planning agencies all around Australia. There are numerous reasons given for increasing public transport usage, including: improved social equity by providing greater travel choice for more people; global and local environmental benefits, with tangible local health benefits; reduced congestion on the road system with consequent advantages to economic productivity; and containing the demand for and cost of roads infrastructure, which has peak period demands but is often underutilised outside peak periods. Increased car ownership and the market demand, at the time, for low density suburban living were major reasons for the decline in public transport usage during the second half of the 20th century. However, it is argued that Government policies and plans, and particularly increased Government investment in roads and reduced investment in public transport, caused the move from public transport to cars to be greater than would have been the case under different investment strategies. The per capita usage of public transport varies quite markedly in different cities and in different areas of the same city. This is largely a consequence of the quality and level of public transport service that has been retained or provided in these different areas. As an example, the part of Melbourne developed prior to 1960 (the inner areas and the tram suburbs - 45% of Melbourne population) has levels of walking and public transport that are more than twice the levels in the remainder of Melbourne. In the older area, the combined walking and public transport trips are 23% more than car driver trips, whereas walking and public transport trips are less than half (44%) of car driver trips in the newer area. It is now widely known that road traffic in urban areas increases when the road system is improved. Some of this is as a result of people driving further, but some is because of a modal shift from walking and public transport to car travel. Studies have also shown that car travel can reduce when road space is reduced. In this paper we expand this concept of induced traffic to public transport. The central thesis of this paper is that whilst the total (all modes) number of trips per person remains fairly constant over time, people can be induced to change mode, depending on the relative attractiveness of a particular mode and on the information people have available to them at the time. The key to increasing public transport mode share is to ensure the service is continuously improved and is seen to be improved, relative to the alternative of travel by car. Simultaneous improvements to car and public transport travel is not likely to result in an increase in public transport mode share. For the covering abstract please see ITRD E135207.
Abstract