Psychological Determinants of the Intention to Use the Bus in Ho Chi Minh City

This study explores the behavioral intention to use the bus while considering the perceived quality of bus service, problem awareness, and moral obligation of people in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), Vietnam. The purpose is to test the feasibility of developing mobility management measures persuading motorcycle users to use the bus more, and if so, how. Principal components analysis on a set of psychological factors related to various aspects of bus use yielded four factors: moral concerns, negative expression, quality perception, and social status. The regression of the intention on these four factors revealed that determinants of intention to use the bus in HCMC are moral concerns and the perception of quality. Based on the psychological relationships, mobility management measures can be applied in persuading people to change their behavior toward using the bus. Introduction Public transportation provides a very important travel mode in human society, and for decades has provided basic mobility for the vast majority of travelers. Studies have shown that provision of proper public transportation would mitigate traffic congestion, reduce CO2 emissions, and improve efficiency of energy consumption, as well as make the society more equitable in terms of mobility Journal of Public Transportation, Vol. 12, No. 1, 2009 98 (Shapiro et al. 2002, American Public Transportation Association 2007). All of these outcomes are the main constituent factors of sustainable development (Victoria Transport Institute 2008). Therefore, a strategy to develop a well-performing public transportation service should have a special place in the overall strategy of transportation planning. Even so, downward trends in the use of urban public transportation now exist not only in developed countries (Hensher 1998) but also in many developing countries (Mohamad and Kiggundu 2007). In developing countries, the bus is typically the backbone of public transportation (Tiwari 1999, Susilo et al. 2007) and the primary means of transportation for many low-income people (Sohaila et al. 2004). However, large economic growth followed by rapid motorization has led to the increase in privately-owned transportation and a consequent remarkable drop in the patronage of public transportation (Morichi 2005). This imbalance between transportation modes can be seen in many cities. For example, in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), Vietnam, only 5 percent of trips occur by bus, whereas almost all the rest are by motorcycle (HCMC Department of Transport 2007a). The solution to such an extreme situation must be a combination of not only “hard” measures such as improving the quality of the bus service but also “soft” measures such as mobility management. Mobility management has been successful in Japan, which uses the Travel Feedback Program for travel behavior change (Fujii and Taniguchi 2006), and in the United Kingdom, which employs Travel Plans (UK Department of Transport 2004). In fact, after investigating the psychological structure of people in HCMC, Van and Fujii (2007) concluded that mobility management has the potential for inducing behavioral change in that city. The aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of psychological factors concerning bus use on motorcycle users’ behavioral intention of using the bus in HCMC. This could be considered an important step toward developing mobility management measures to influence the behavior of motorcycle users in HCMC toward bus use. Quality of service is an important factor in the widespread use of public transportation (Paulley et al. 2006). In addition, transportation quality is acknowledged to consist of two parts: the objective aspect, such as performance measures, and the psychological aspect or service measures, such as how customers perceive the service (Kittelson and Associates, Inc. et al. 2003). If HCMC’s bus service is examined objectively, statistics (HCMC Department of Transport 2007b) show that the bus, which is the only public transportation mode in HCMC, has seen heavy investment since 2002. Buses serve 24 corridors and are spreading to many smaller