Commuters' Willingness to Pay for a Comfortable Bus Transport Service in Kandy - Sri Lanka

Abstract: Due to numerous reasons such as higher travel time, higher waiting time, low comfort level etc. in public transportation, commuters are shifting to private transport modes causing an increase in traffic congestion, accidents, and environmental problems. Therefore, improving the comfortability of the public bus transport system is very important since it is one of the key factors affecting the mode choice of commuters. Therefore, this study is set to identify the Willingness To Pay (WTP) ability of commuters for an improved comfortable bus service. The data for the study was collected through a questionnaire survey in Kandy, which is the second busiest city in Sri Lanka. Binary Logistic Regression was used to identify the factors affecting the WTP of the commuters and the WTP value. According to the results, it was identified that the frequency of bus usage is a significant factor which affects the WTP of a commuter. Furthermore, it has been identified that a daily commuter is willing to pay 1.5 times the bus fare while the rare users and private vehicle users are willing to pay about 2 times the current bus fare for a comfortable bus service.