Investigating the Contribution of Transportation Demand Management Policies to Car Commuters’ Mode Changel

Traffic congestion is said to be a major trouble in most of the world’s cities. Delays, degradation of environmental quality, and nonrenewable energy consumption are some outcomes of traffic congestion. Discontent about traffic congestion usually inclines policymakers to propose solutions to reduce it. Studies have shown that there is a difference between the responses to congestion that are assumed by policymakers and those that individuals adopt. Although such solutions serve social causes, individuals are often looking for a solution to solve their own problems. Many studies have shown that there is a difference between the responses to congestion that are assumed by policymakers and those that are actually adopted by individuals. This paper adopts a behavioral approach to examine the mentioned difference using design of experiments principles and Logit models. In this approach, five policies namely cordon pricing, parking pricing, increasing fuel cost, transit time reduction, and transit access time reduction were investigated. Based on levels of coerciveness, effective policies for attracting car commuters to each of the existing non-car modes and their contributions to individuals’ mode change were taken into account. Furthermore the role of transportation related and socio-economic variables are also investigated in such mode change. This study uses the stated preferences of 288 individuals who regularly use their private cars to access their job locations in the Tehran odd-even zone to calibrate six models of non-car mode consideration. Analysis of the average contributions of transportation demand management (TDM) policies to the consideration of non-car modes shows that although their contributions are about 14% for transit accessed by walking and 7% for taxi, they have never contributed more than two percent to other modes.