Factors influencing travel behaviour and mode choice among Universiti Teknologi Malaysia employees

Abstract

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia occupies a large number of employees. The majority of employees use their private vehicles to perform their jobs. Thus, the rush of vehicles damages the sustainable environment of the campus. The statement of research problem indicates that there is traffic congestion in UTM, because of employees driving their cars to work. Until researcher understands the employees travel behaviour, employees cannot be convinced to shift to public transportation. The objectives of the research is to determine the travel behaviour, modal split, factors which influence the modal shift towards public transport. In addition, the willingness to adopt public transportation among the employees of the UTM. if UTM provides pick and drop facility to their employees to reduce the incoming number of private vehicles to the campus. It is envisaged that this research will contribute to the sustainable campus environment of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. In research methodology, a sample of 144 university employees was selected. Purposive sampling method was adopted to select the respondents. A quantitative questionnaire survey was used to gather information about travel characteristics of employees, their journey to work and mode of transportation. The data was analysed through descriptive frequencies, mean, median, mode and t-test for the factors that influence and encourage use of public transport by employees. A hypothesis test was performed to test the researcher hvpothesis. From the analysis of data researcher analysed that more than ninety percent of employees travelling mode is towards private vehicles. This means modal split of UTM employees is 90:10. Fifty percent employees are willing to adopt public transport due to parking problem, avoiding mental stress, traffic congestion, and fare rate cheaper than car and to protect environment. On the other hand, fifty percent respondents revealed some problems which influence for biased towards public transport such as pick and drop to their children to school, wastage of time and personal status and privacy. From the hypothesis test researcher proved that more than 90% of UTM employees modal split is biased towards private vehicles. In another hypothesis researcher failed to reject the null hypothesis which is, employees willingness to switch public transport if provided by UTM. It is concluded that wastage of time, pick and drop of children to school, personal status and privacy as well as inaccessibility to public transport are key factors deterring employees to use public transportation to come to work. Hence, it is recommended that intensive efforts are required from the UTM to provide a bus service for their employees and encourage them to shift the modal split in favour of public transport.