Resumen
Intercity travel is crucial to the economic development of any nation with air travel demand modeling being a key component in transportation planning. For this study, the university township of IIT Bombay in Mumbai, India is considered to capture the travel choice behaviour of its residents comprising of students, faculty and staff, when traveling to other cities. The prime areas of analysis are determining trip generations based on socioeconomic characteristics of the travelers using regression analysis, understanding mode choice by looking into travel decisions made as a function of both mode and income characteristics using utility theory, and to decipher the dimension of airport choice when a new airport comes into play along with an existing airport using utility theory, all of these based on responses of the travelers to Revealed Preference (RP) and Stated Preference (SP) questionnaires, with the latter based on the response of 1% of the population. Extensive sample set of 7 % of the university population is considered with two questionnaires, one an RP approach focusing on outgoing trips in 2014 and the other, an SP approach to model airport choice. Interviewees are divided into five categories, three for students based on monthly stipend and the rest for faculty and staff, with trips being differentiated purpose-wise. Number of annual trips by air and other modes is estimated for the sample set with adjusted R2 and p-values giving simplified trip generation equations. Choice of main modes like flight and train and ground access modes of auto and taxi, is deciphered using Multinomial Logit modeling with McFadden R2, p-values and prediction-success tables being evaluation criteria. Conditional probability of airport choice is calculated using a balanced and orthogonal fractional factorial design of 9 options with airfare, flight frequency, airport access time and airport delay, each being three-level indicators. A sound theoretical framework to dissect the intricacies of intercity travel choice with special importance to air travel has been constructed here with the results demonstrating that travel behaviour is not an independent entity but a function of mode and socioeconomic characteristics. Individuals whose households have higher socioeconomic conditions fly more frequently and choose comfortable modes of travel, in general. Airfare and flight frequency are found to be vital attributes for a potential airport choice study. This study provides flexibility in application to any region under similar principles to understand the nuances of travel behaviour better.