Predicting the Impact of Demand- and Supply-Side Measures on Bus Ridership in Putrajaya, Malaysia

Putrajaya is a unique Malaysian city from a transport policy perspective because of its explicit goal to achieve a 70 percent share of public transport to its core precincts.A study was recently commissioned with the aim of quantifying travelers’ responses to policy measures to ensure effective strategy formulation. This article describes and discusses the methods, results, and policy implications of the study. Econometric estimation results show that improvement in public transport alone is incapable of inducing sufficient modal shift to achieve the goal of a 70:30 split between public and private transport. Although service quality positively influences ridership, modal split is generally not very sensitive to variation in the quality of public transport service. Thus, demand management measures appear to be indispensable as a policy tool to reduce dependence on private transport