Subway Ticket Pricing and Travel Behavior: The Impacts of an Increase of Subway Fare on Residents' Travel Trips in Beijing

Ticket pricing is a main topic of transport economy and also a key issue in public transport management. There are many arguments about the impacts of subway pricing on residents' travel. This paper aims to examine the existing arguments by looking at Beijing as a case. Beijing municipal government decided to change subway fare from a flat fare of RMB 2 (0.35 USA cents) to a distance-based price system since 28th December, 2014. The paper investigates the impacts of an increase of subway fare on individual people's travel trips. A before-after approach is applied to compare passengers' travel characteristics before and after the ticket price changed. The data is from a survey which collected 788 questionnaires at 32 subway stations. The results of analysis show that 9.01% of the respondents reduced their travel frequency of subway. Among these reduced trips, 71.8% are commuting trips and 24% are shopping trips. Apparently, there are obvious social variations in the change of trips in terms of people's income, ages, housing types and residential location, etc. The increase of subway fare would have effects on social inequity as the quality of living to some disadvantaged people are particularly affected, such as low-income, the young, the elderly, and those who live in suburban renting housing. For the future policy, targeted subsidy policy should be considered in order to promote a more equal and affordable public transport in Beijing. ? ASCE.EI272-28