Which is More Effective in Guiding Households to Choose Bus Travel-A Transit Subsidy Policy or Discount Policy?

The continuous increase in the number of private cars has caused an imbalance in the travel of cars and buses. This phenomenon has become a bottleneck restricting urban transportation economy and sustainable development. This paper examines the effectiveness of policy options in motivating travelers to choose buses instead of cars. Using of reference dependence describes mode choice behaviors with two attributes under different public transit policies in uncertain conditions. At the same time, we also consider using the bus fare concession strategy to guide the traveler to reasonably choose the bus travel, and establish a bi-level programming model to optimize the bus fare proportions. Among them, the lower-level planning considers the two attributes impact of traffic policy on travelers' decision to bus travel. Using the upper-level planning, the optimal fare preferential proportion for different policy decisions is decided considering the lowest total system cost. The study highlights that the transit subsidy policy can be employed to guide travelers to choose bus travel preferentially. Model effectiveness is verified using numerical examples. The model is indispensable for the implementation of future traffic demand management strategies.