研究項目

GRF (HKBU12613324) “How are people satisfied with their daily travel? the role of reference points in different contexts”. HK$904,000. 2025-2027

Introduction: Travel satisfaction has emerged as a hot topic in transportation and travel behavior research over the past few years. As the transport domain specific subjective wellbeing, travel satisfaction is people’s affective and cognitive assessment about their daily travel. Studies have investigated a wide range of factors that may influence travel satisfaction including transport, the built environment, and people’s socioeconomic factors. Research efforts to conceptualize travel satisfaction are relatively scarce. One important issue is what reference points (i.e., the points which people compare their own travel behaviors to) people use to evaluate travel satisfaction. This research project addresses this research gap by investigating how different reference points, including travel preference/attitude, alternative travel choices, past travel behavior, and peers' travel behavior, influence people's assessment about their travel experiences. We are particularly interested in the direct, indirect, mediating, and moderating effects of different reference points on travel satisfaction and how these effects are manifested in different societal and transport system contexts. We propose to conduct the empirical study in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, two neighboring cities but different in the built environment, transport system, and mobility culture, among others. The research is expected to make important theoretical and empirical contributions to the travel satisfaction literature. The research findings would be useful for policy makers to evaluate transport development and policies in terms of their impacts on people’s subjective wellbeing and to develop transport policies that may enhance citizen’s quality of life.

GRF (HKBU 12610423), “Demand responsive bus, home and work locations, and daily travel behavior”. HK$1,273,680. 2024-2026.

Introduction: Demand Responsive Bus (DRB, 定制公交 in Chinese) is emerging as an important alternative to traditional public transport. Much research attention has been paid to the acceptance, usage patterns, and design of DRB, not much research has been conducted to investigate the implications of DRB on people’s home and work locations and travel behavior. This research is proposed to address this research gap. The study will focus on comparing the spatial and sociodemographic profiles of commuters by different transport modes including DRB and understanding how DRB plays a role in shaping people’s daily travel behavior and influencing residential and work location choices.

The empirical study will be conducted in Shenzhen where the DRB services are most developed in China. We shall identify three groups of daily commuters using private transport, traditional public transport (e.g. bus or rail transit), and DRB. We shall collect first-hand data from both DRB users and non-users living in different districts of Shenzhen. Various statistical analysis and modelling approaches including stated preference methods will be applied to characterize DRB users and examine the impacts of DRB usage on travel behavior, travel satisfaction and home as well as work locations. Findings of this project shall enrich the literature on demand responsive transport and new mobility services in general. They will be particularly relevant for urban and transport planners to develop land use and transport policies to facilitate the development of DRB and maximize its social, wellbeing, environmental and transport benefits.

HSSPFS (32000223), “How does rail transit development induce people's daily travel behavior changes in Shenzhen?”, HK$723,734, 2024.

Introduction: Shenzhen has developed from scratch a rail transit network of more than 400 kilometers and rail transit has been an important dimension of urban expansion. This research shall focus on the impacts of the increasing accessibility to rail transit on people’s daily travel behavior. Three research topics will be addressed:

1) Impacts of (improved) rail transit accessibility on travel behavior during different stages of rail transit expansion: This research shall employ the difference-in-differences modeling framework to evaluate the changing effects of rail transit accessibility on people's daily travel behavior during different stages of rail transit development in Shenzhen.

2) How does rail transit expansion impact on the travel behavior of transit users and nonusers: Investigating how rail transit expansion influence different groups of travelers will generate research findings on the direct and indirect impacts of rail transit development on travel behavior.

3) What are the impacts of rail transit expansion on car ownership and car use in daily travel. It is valuable to analyze how rail transit development affects the private car use of car owners and identify the potential spillover effects of transit development beyond transit users or the general public.

The study shall make use of data collected in the household Travel Survey conducted in 2006, 2010, 2016, and 2020, which the PI has access through research collaboration with Shenzhen Urban Planning and Land Resource Research Centre affiliated with Shenzhen Government's Bureau of Urban Planning and Natural Resource. The difference-in-differences modeling framework shall be employed to model the causal effects of rail transit accessibility on travel behavior at different stages of transit development, for transit users and non-users, and for car owners and others.

This research will contribute to the travel behavior literature with three studies from long-term dynamic and development perspectives. The research findings are highly relevant for transport planning and development in many cities especially large Chinese cities that have experienced similar rail transit network development.

GRF (HKBU 12609621), “Urban expansion and travel behavior evolution in Shenzhen: the role of travel time budget”. HK$970,538. 2022-2025

Introduction: The impact of the built environment on travel behavior has received extensive research attention around the world over the past decades. Different study designs and various sophisticated modeling approaches have been used to estimate the impact. However, most of the existing studies assume that the impact of the built environment on travel behavior is time-invariant, ignoring the fact that such impact may change over time especially over the course of urban expansion. Recognizing these long-term trends are crucial to accurately evaluate the influence of land use policies on transport demand. Further, there is a long-time debate on the existence of a stable time budget that people are willing to spend on daily travel. Urban expansion may lead to further apart of activity locations such as home and workplace and thus the need for longer travel time. On the other hand, the spatiotemporal constraints limit people’s time available for daily travel. Investigating the dynamics of the built environment and travel behavior will shed light on the constant travel time budget hypothesis.

To fill these gaps in the literature, this research is proposed to utilize data from periodical travel surveys that are usually conducted in major cities to investigate the built environment-travel behavior connection from a long-term dynamic perspective. We will first explore the dynamic trends of both the built environment and travel behavior over the course of decades. Methods like propensity score matching (PSM) and hierarchical age-period-cohort (HAPC) model would be used to address the age, period, and cohort effect in travel behavioral changes. We shall pay special attention to the trends of daily travel time to shed light on the constant travel time budget hypothesis. Further, we shall apply latent class structural equation model (SEM) to examine the long-term dynamics of land use impacts on travel behavior. We propose to conduct the empirical study in Shenzhen, China for the urban expansion and transport developments that Shenzhen has experienced over the past decades and the availability of large scale household travel surveys in multiple years. Academically, this research will enrich the literature on the built environment-travel behavior connection with a dynamic perspective and provide evidence concerning the constant travel time budget hypothesis. Practically, the outcomes of this project will deliver useful policy information for future urban planning and land use-based mobility strategies, especially for cities in emerging economies.