Residential dissonance in TOD neighborhoods

Metro rail transit (MRT) system in Indian urban areas is growing at a rapid rate, to enhance public transportation and decongest the road transportation. To assess the neighborhoods of urban areas it is essential to evaluate the behavioral attitudes of commuters. Existing studies have shown that behavioral attitudes influence residential selection and mode choice, which might result in a dissonance between individuals' preference and actuality in residence. Residential dissonance has become a critical issue that affects commuter mode choice in urban areas. Majority of studies on residential dissonance were conducted in developed countries. This research is still at the infancy stage in developing countries like India. The objective of this study is to fill this gap by evaluating the effect of residential dissonance on commuter mode choice behavior in National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi. For this, 2633 individual responses from Transit Oriented Development (TOD) and non-TOD neighborhoods of NCT Delhi were considered. The actual neighborhood types were derived by using Two-step cluster analysis and the preferred neighborhood types were derived by using a binary logit model. The dissonance analysis shows that 23.25% of TOD residents were dissonant in NCT Delhi. The study findings suggest that an attitudinal change of 0.5 units might change an average of 26% of consonance/dissonance levels in TOD neighborhoods. Multinomial Logit (MNL) models were employed to understand the mode choice and dissonance connections. The MNL model results show that the presence of women commuters and their safety will enhance the choice of active transport in TODs and public transport in non-TODs in NCT Delhi. Findings of this study will contribute to the necessary policy implications towards urban structure design and TOD policies to the developing world, especially in the Indian context.