Attitudes and Perceptions on Travel Mode Choice in an Emerging Urban Area of Indonesia: The Case of Southern Sumatera

Abstract

Trans Sumatera toll road connects the southern end of Bakauheni to Palembang for 450 km and has been operated almost for a year. With a right of way width of about 100 meters, the government planned the railway line to be built parallel to the toll road: with a cheaper investment cost because almost without land acquisition and access location is already open. Railway mode is possible immediately built on the Bakauheni -Bandar Lampung corridor to compete with the dominance of conventional modes such as AC-bus, non-AC bus, auto, and motorcycle. The state preference technique has been applied to the study area to explore the attitude and perception of more than 500 respondents regarding the operation of new mode railways in line with toll roads operating earlier. The railways will stretch for 109 km linking the port of Bakauheni in the south of Sumatera to Bandar Lampung This emerging urban area continues to grow dynamically due to the support of adequate transportation infrastructure and geographical proximity to the capital of Jakarta. The output of the mode choice model with the attributes of fare, travel time, headway, and delay shows that the greatest potential in the existing conventional mode for shifting to railways is the non-AC bus user group by almost 25%, followed by AC-bus 20%, auto user by 4% and motorcycle user by 1%.