Mode choice among university students to school in Danang, Vietnam

Understanding student's travel patterns and attitude toward public transport service is very important to policy makers as well as public transport operators. This study aims to examine the travel mode choice of university students in a developing country where motorcycles have been dominating traffic systems. With the data collected from over 500 students in six universities in Danang, Vietnam, a conditional logit regression model was developed to explore individual and alternative specific variables influencing the mode choice for trips to school. Key findings show that characteristic of students such as age, gender and income have a significant impact on their mode choice decision. Travel time from home to school is found to have a strongly negative effect on the choice of walking as a means of travelling to school. It is also found that students who are using motorcycles to schools are willing to switch to public transport if an efficient and reliable public transport system is available.