Using Analytic Hierarchy Process To Calculate Share Rate For Different Travel Modes

India has the largest and the busiest railway system in the world.However,the Indian Railways does not operate a high-speed railway but is aspiring to construct one between Mumbai and Ahmedabad.The proposed railway will be 650 km long and will run at the speed of 350 km/h.When an additional mode of transportation becomes available people will consider shifting for their old mode of transport based on different attributes.Generally,the passengers are considered as logical decision maker who take into consideration various attributes of different travel modes before choosing one among them.For this experiment,six major attributes are taken into consideration which passengers will consider before making a decision regarding their mode of transportation.The six attributes are:time of travel,travel cost,convenience,comfort,safety,and reliability.The purpose of the study is to look at a survey performed under these considerations.The survey has attempted to provide a diverse sample group representing people of varying socioeconomic levels like income,sex,and age to represent real population using those travel modes.With a focus on income the sample group is divided into four economic levels based on monthly incomeThe survey pool is divided into four levels of economic situation based on the monthly income to find the sensitivity towards variation of different attributes of the travel modes among them.The Multi-Criteria Decision Making(MCDM)is used as various attributes are inherently conflicting in.To provide additional clarity MDCM method called Analytic Hierarchy Process(AHP)is used for the experimentation which requires the survey pool to perform pairwise comparison between different attributes while choosing any mode of transportation.The survey pool must compare every pair of attributes among the six attributes and provide absolute value for relative dominance of one of the attributes over the other for every comparison.The survey might result with inconsistent answers due to negligence or confusion of the members of the survey pool,this can be avoided with the use of consistency test.The survey is conducted to understand the opinion of people of Mumbai regarding their perception of different attributes of travel mode.Through the experimentation it is found that there is increase in sensitivity to change in safety,comfort,reliability and travel time as monthly income of the passengers increase at different rates whereas change in travel time and frequency are found to follow opposite pattern.There are four economic levels and the study calculates the perceived relative significance of the attributes in relation to the economic classes.The result is used for calculation of choice between one of the four means of transportation namely:bus,train,flight,and high-speed between Mumbai to Ahmedabad is considered.These values along with the data gathered is utilized to ascertain the value of the six attributes for the four travel modes between Mumbai and Ahmedabad.This construction of utility function will give an idea about the preference of different means of transportation an individual will choose as an alternative with the highest utility.The research makes calculation of share rate based on utility function with the help of Logit Model.It is found that share rate for high-speed and flight increases with increase in monthly income while bus and train decrease with the monthly income.It is hoped that through this study,the planner can utilize the knowledge of how passenger of different economic levels value and react to change in different attributes of the travel mode and how the share rate for different travel modes are affected due to their preference of certain attributes to other.Thus,various attributes can be changed or modified to attract passengers towards preferred mode of transportation.The research is extended by taking varying value of ticket-price for high speed railway to calculate share rate among different economic level.Five different ticket prices for high speed railway are considered.It is found that share rate for high speed increases significantly if the ticket price is considered less than flight ticket.It is hoped that the study would help planner set up the ticket price for high-speed to increase passenger share rate.In the end,two types of high-speed railway with difference in commercial average speed are taken into consideration to calculate the share rate.It is found the changes in share rate for both types are considerably small.