Influence of High-Speed Railway System on Inter-city Travel Behavior in Vietnam

TL;DR

This study models the impact of Vietnam's High-Speed Railway on inter-city travel, revealing increased travel demand, mode preferences, and sensitivities to travel costs and times for different trip purposes.

Contribution

It develops an integrated demand model combining trip generation, destination, and mode choice, specifically analyzing HSR's influence in Vietnam.

Findings

HSR induces additional travel demand.

HSR and airlines dominate middle and long-distance travel.

Travel sensitivities vary between business and non-business travelers.

Abstract

To analyze the influence of introducing the High-Speed Railway (HSR) system on business and non-business travel behavior, this study develops an integrated inter-city travel demand model to represent trip generations, destination choice, and travel mode choice behavior. The accessibility calculated from the RP/SP (Revealed Preference/Stated Preference) combined nested logit model of destination and mode choices is used as an explanatory variable in the trip frequency models. One of the important findings is that additional travel would be induced by introducing HSR. Our simulation analyses also reveal that HSR and conventional airlines will be the main modes for middle distances and long distances, respectively. The development of zones may highly influence the destination choices for business purposes, while prices of HSR and Low-Cost Carriers affect choices for non-business purposes. Finally, the research reveals that people on non-business trips are more sensitive to changes in travel time, travel cost and regional attributes than people on business trips.