Market-Based Approach to Customized Trip-Reduction Program Design

Frequently a conflict is observed between the desires of central authorities to implement regionwide commuter service plans (e.g., statewide plans) and the desire of local authorities to customize those plans. The hypothesis that commuters in different cities would have no significant differences in their responses to alternate commute incentives was tested, for the purpose of supporting the notion that a statewide plan is an acceptable and efficient method of designing such incentive plans. Literature on various commute choice modeling techniques was reviewed, as well as literature on the comparison of the effectiveness of various incentives in increasing use of alternative commute modes. From this review, a multivariate regression modeling process was adopted and four incentives were chosen, to be tested by means of a phone-mail survey approach in three different cities in Florida. Models were built and tested for the entire data set, and interaction terms for the impact of cities were tested for significance. Two of the incentives met the 95 percent criterion for falsifying the hypothesis that incentive levels for the three cities were the same. The alternative null hypothesis that all of the cities would have different responses could not be disproved. The conclusion of the research is that the burden of proof rests with those who would state that all of the cities would respond the same way. The data available from the study do not support that conclusion.