Study on Induced Passenger Flow Forecast for Intercity High-Speed Rail

Abstract

To forecast the induced passenger flow of intercity high-speed rail, two related multinomial logit models are applied to describe travelers’ travel choice behavior under changes in the travel environment. The first model describes different choices of travel mode by travelers between origin–destination pairs, while the second model describes the choice of travel frequency by different travelers. By introducing the consumption surplus variable of travelers, the two selected models are correlated and the model is calibrated using data from a behavioral survey and an intention survey. The results show that the polynomial logit model is applicable for forecasting induced passenger flow after changes in the travel environment. The consumption surplus of travelers is the key factor influencing changes in travel frequency, and the social characteristics of travelers and the economic development features of origin and destination cities have significant impacts on travel frequency. In-transit time is the key factor affecting the demand elasticity of travel frequency. The range of demand elasticity for short-distance business and non-business travel is between −0.61 and −0.79. The results of the demand elasticity analysis were applied to predict that the travel frequency of people from Nanjing to Huai’an, Suqian, Lianyungang, and Yancheng will increase by about 45% after the opening of the Nanjing-Huai’an intercity high-speed railway.