An analysis of commute mode choice behavior considering the impacts of built environment in Beijing

Concerns over traffic congestion and environmental pollution have prompted more studies into the impacts of built environment on commuters' mode choice behavior. This paper aims to make a comprehensive analysis of commuters' mode choice behavior with the 5(th) Household Travel Survey in Beijing. A mixed nested logit model was employed to jointly explore the impacts of mode attributes and built environment variables on commuters' mode choice. The results show that the proposed mixed nested logit model outperforms the contrastive models, i.e., standard multinomial logit model and nested logit model. Estimated results indicate that non-motorized mode commuters pay more attention to OD distance. Land-use mix and density have significant influence on reducing car preference, and only show significant effect in working zone. Furthermore, public modes including bus and subway are regarded as one group that the convenient of either one of them changes will influence commuters' preference on the whole public transportation system.