Integrating multimodal travel information at major transport interchanges : the prospective of intelligent public transport information system

Inducing car-drivers to switch mode to public proved to be one of the greatest challenges faced by many transport planners and traffic engineers. Retaining public transport users also seemed to be an issue, especially within an industry that has dwindling patronage trends. This paper presents some findings of an evaluation of a hypothetical rail-bus information integration to promote the retaining of existing users of a public transport service. In the events of service disruptions, users' perceptions of and travel decisions relating feeder bus services were assessed. Messages regarding the availability of the supplementary service were provided to assist users; particularly for interchanges or transfers purposes. The major findings regarding mode and route selections are reported and discussed. The modal split changes are highlighted and potentials of integrating rail-bus information are outlined. Modelling the switching behaviours has been undertaken utilising a number of statistical software packages. The proportion of prospective passengers selecting feeder buses are calibrated based on parameter estimates derived from the model developed, and further validated against the observed behaviours. Factors such as personal traits, trip characteristics and previous decisional influences on the current selection are discussed in brief.