Service Quality Gap and the Value of Time for Taiwan's Carpool

From the urban travel demand management perspective, carpools and/or vanpools are often regarded as effective ways to reduce traffic congestion during peak periods. However, because high-occupancy-vehicle (HOV) lanes are not popular in Taiwan’s urban highway systems, carpooling is currently not among the major demand management strategies adopted in Taiwan. This paper aims to assess the quality of existing carpooling services and the effectiveness of HOV lanes for promoting carpooling among daily commuters in the Taiwan urban area. We collected network questionnaire survey data from two of the major carpool-matching websites, i.e., the Green Carpool Network and the BBS board, to measure the differences between expected and perceived service quality and to identify the behavioral changes before and after the freeway HOV lanes’ opening. By applying structural equation modeling to investigate the factors affecting carpooling, we find that the gaps between expectation and perception are significant in all four facets of service attributes that affect the satisfaction ratings of carpool practices among daily commuters. Furthermore, by analyzing carpooling behavioral changes after the introduction of HOV lanes, we find that saving travel expenses and travel time are not the main reasons why commuters join carpooling practices.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ABE50 Standing Committee on Transportation Demand Management.
• Authors:
  • Shyr, Oliver F
  • Tu, Chien-Hung
  • Zhu, Xiao-Feng
  • Lee, Tzu-Chang
  • Huang, Chun-Kai
  • Huang, Chao-Yi
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2018-1-7 to 2018-1-11
• Date: 2018

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; Tables;
• Pagination: 6p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Carpools; High occupancy vehicle lanes; Quality of service; Travel demand management; Urban transportation; Value of time
• Geographic Terms: Taiwan
• Subject Areas: Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Public Transportation;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01657862
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 18-02351
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Jan 25 2018 9:32AM