A research study submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Engineering, School of Civil Engineering

Research Studies Project Report (M. Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2003

This research study is carried out to study the behavior and characteristics of the transportation users in Thimphu, the capital city of Bhutan. However, due to constraint of time, the study has been limited to the study of only work trips. The study consists of the collection of socio-economic data and trip related data related to modal choice and conducting a behavior analysis. The results of the behavior analysis is used to model the mode choice by developing appropriate disaggregate models. In this study, two types of disaggregate model have been adopted which are the Multinomial Logit (MNL) and the Nested Logit (NL) model. The core of model development involves the formulation of utility functions by specifying variables related to the trip and the trip makers. The variables related to the trip are the cost and travel time where as the variables related to the trip maker are the socioeconomic variables. During the model development, some socioeconomic variables such as sex, age, income, and vehicle ownership were found to influence the mode choice. After the calibration of both the two types of model, the calibration results were compared and the Multinomial model has been selected to predict the modal share and study the impact of certain policies on the mode choice. As, the modal share of the mode bus was found to be very low, the policy of improving the bus system was analyzed by conducting sensitivity analysis. The analysis revealed that reducing the travel time was more promising than reducing the cost of the bus in order to attract more bus users.