Esraa Jamal, David Scott, Ahmed Idris & Gordon Lovegrove
Investigating factors affecting the mode choices of commuters in Kuwait city & surrounding urban areas: Strategies for a higher quality and more sustainable public transport system Urban Development Issues, vol. 63, 65–76 DOI: 10.2478/udi-2019-0017
Keywords: transportation planning, sustainable transport, public transportation, public transit, socio-cultural factors, public survey
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ABSTRACT
This paper reports on the social, cultural, and demographic factors affecting Kuwaiti commuters. The objectives were to 1) investigate the awareness of Kuwaitis of transportation problems, 2) examine the perceptions of Kuwaitis of daily traffic congestion and how it affects them emotionally and physically,
and the main objective 3) study the attitudes of Kuwaitis towards using public buses. An online survey was used to examine these factors, and a sample of five hundred transportation system users was obtained. The primary findings showed significant associations between the use of public transport buses and the user’s nationality, gender, age, education, and income level. Men are 2.6 times more likely to use buses, and non-Kuwaiti residents are 6.4 times more likely to use them. In relation to the perceptions of daily traffic congestion, findings indicate that with increase in travel time, commuters, in general, developed more negative feelings, such as exhaustion and stress. A large proportion of the sample population is aware of current local trans portation problems and future transportation projects. The results of this study fill a gap in the knowledge of the socioeconomic and cultural factors that influence the success of sustainable public transportation solutions to the traffic challenges found in Kuwait. This knowledge is also crucial to foreign consultants working on planning and transportation projects in the region. It is recommended that officials use this new knowledge on cultural factors to develop integrated land use and transportation plans of the urban areas in Kuwait and to develop more effective and sustainable transportation demand management policies in support of UN Sustainable Development Goals that Kuwait has signed up to pursue.
This paper reports on the social, cultural, and demographic factors affecting Kuwaiti commuters. The objectives were to 1) investigate the awareness of Kuwaitis of transportation problems, 2) examine the perceptions of Kuwaitis of daily traffic congestion and how it affects them emotionally and physically,
and the main objective 3) study the attitudes of Kuwaitis towards using public buses. An online survey was used to examine these factors, and a sample of five hundred transportation system users was obtained. The primary findings showed significant associations between the use of public transport buses and the user’s nationality, gender, age, education, and income level. Men are 2.6 times more likely to use buses, and non-Kuwaiti residents are 6.4 times more likely to use them. In relation to the perceptions of daily traffic congestion, findings indicate that with increase in travel time, commuters, in general, developed more negative feelings, such as exhaustion and stress. A large proportion of the sample population is aware of current local trans portation problems and future transportation projects. The results of this study fill a gap in the knowledge of the socioeconomic and cultural factors that influence the success of sustainable public transportation solutions to the traffic challenges found in Kuwait. This knowledge is also crucial to foreign consultants working on planning and transportation projects in the region. It is recommended that officials use this new knowledge on cultural factors to develop integrated land use and transportation plans of the urban areas in Kuwait and to develop more effective and sustainable transportation demand management policies in support of UN Sustainable Development Goals that Kuwait has signed up to pursue.
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United Nation Development Program (2009) Implementation of the Comprehensive and Long Term National Traffic and Transport Sector Strategy for Kuwait. Available from: http://www.undp.org/content/dam/kuwait/documents/project-documents/Human%20Development/General%20Directorate%20of%20Traffic%20Project%202009–2013%20SIGNED.pdf [accessed: 10.07.2019].
Wener, R. & Evans, G. (2011) Comparing stress of car and train commuters, Transportation research part F: Traffic Psychology and Behavior, 14(2), 111–116.
Van, H., Choocharukul, K. & Fuijii, S. (2014) The effect of attitudes toward cars and public transportation on behavioral intention in commuting mode choice: A comparison across six Asian countries, Transportation Research: Part A, Policy and Practice, 69, 36–44.
Xia, Y., Jun, C. & Wei, W. (2009), Travel characteristics and mode choice behavior of public transportation in China, International conference on transportation engineering, 2195–2200.
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rootMenu=291&menuID=291 [accessed: 10.07.2019].
Kuwait Online Government: 76Esraa Jamal, David Scott, Ahmed Idris, Gordon Lovegrove Investigating factors affecting the mode choices of commuters in Kuwait city & surrounding urban areas: http://www.e.gov.kw/sites/kgoenglish/portal/Pages/Visitors/About-Kuwait.aspx# [accessed: 10.07.2019].
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Al-Rukaibi, F., AlKheder, S., AlOtaibi, N. & Almutairi, M. (2019) Traffic crashes cost estimation in Kuwait, International Journal of Crashworthiness. DOI:10.1080/13588265.2019.1567966.
Ashalatha, R., Manju, V. & Zacharia, A. (2013) Mode Choice Behavior of Commuters in Thiruvananthapuram City, Journal of Transportation Engineering, 139(5), 494–502.
Beirao, G., & Cabral, J.A. (2007) Understanding attitudes towards public transport and private car: A qualitative study, Transport Policy, 14(6), 478–489.
Ben-Akiva, M. & Morikawa, T. (2012) Comparing ridership attraction of rail and bus, Transport Policy, 9(2), 107–116.
Bethlehem, J. & Biffignandi, S. (2012) Hand book of web surveys, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New Jersey.
Brutus, S., Javadian, R. & Panaccio, A. (2017) Cycling, car, or public transit: a study of stress and mood upon arrival at work, International Journal of Workplace Health Management, 10(1), 13–24.
Bryman, A., Bell, E. & Teevan, J. (2012) Social research methods, Oxford University Press, United Kingdom.
Buhrmester, M. (2011) Amazon’s Mechanical Turk: A new source of inexpensive, yet high-quality, data?, Perspectives on psychological science journal, 6(1), 3–5.
Elmi, A. & Al-Rifai, N. (2011) Pollutant emissions from passenger cars in traffic congestion situation in the state of Kuwait: options and challenges, Clean Technology environmental policy, 14, 619–624.
Friman, M., Olsson, L.E., Stahl, M., Ettema, D. & Garling, T. (2017) Travel and residual emotional well-being, Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 49, 159–176.
Ghabra. S. (1997) Kuwait and the Dynamics of Socio-Economic Change, Middle East Journal, 51(3), 358–372.
Grammenos, F. & Lovegrove, G. (2015) Remaking the City Street Grid: A Model for Urban and Suburban Development. Jefferson, MacFarland & Company, Inc., North Carolina.
Green, G., Morris, J. & Wade, M. (2012) Health, sustainability and student travel, Nurse education in practice, 12(1), 41–45.
Guo, H. & Shi, H. (2007) Study on Traveler’s Behavior Value in City Passenger Traffic System, International Conference on Transportation Engineering 2007, 564–569.
Hajeeh, M. (2012) Analysis of traffic problems in Kuwait, Recent Researches in Engineering Mechanics, Urban & Naval Transportation and Tourism, 85–90.
Hay, I. (2010) Qualitative research methods in human geography, Oxford University Press, Canada.
Holden, J. (2013) Assessing the reliability of the M5–120 on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, Computers in human behavior journal, 29(4), 1749–1754.
Hutchinson, B. (1990) Spatial differentiation, transport demands and transport model design in Kuwait, Transport reviews, 10(2), 91–110.
Idris, A.O., Nurul Habib, K.M., & Shalaby, A. (2014) Dissecting the Role of Transit Service Attributes in Attracting Commuters: Lessons from a Comprehensive RP-SP Study on Commuting Mode Switching Behaviour in Toronto, Journal of the Transportation Research Board (TRB), 2415(1), 107–117.
Idris, A.O., Nurul Habib, K.M., & Shalaby, A. (2015) An Investigation on the Performances of Mode Shift Models in Transit Ridership Forecasting, Journal of Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 78, 551–565.
Jamal, E. (2015) Assessing public transportation options as a potential solution to the transportation challenges in the State of Kuwait, unpublished master’s thesis, University of British Columbia, Kelowna, BC, Canada.
Jiang, S. (2011) Household planning of transportation use, International Journal of Business and Social Science, 2(14), 61–70.
Kun, J., 18.10.2012, Where the rich use public transport...., City Atlas.
Available from: http://newyork.thecityatlas.org/lifestyle/developed-area-rich-public-transport-ways-city/ [accessed: 10.07.2019 ].
Kuwait Central Statistical Bureau (2017), Annual statistical bulletin of transport 2012.
Available from:https://www.csb.gov.kw/Pages/Statistics_en?ID=41&ParentCatID=%2070 [accessed: 10.07.2019].
Litman, T. (2017) Evaluating public transit as an energy conservation and emission reduction strategy, Victoria Transport Policy Institute, Canada.
Mohammad, Z. (2014) The development plan did not fit him, Al-Muhailbi: lack in the master plan. Al Qabas newspaper, 11.
Nassar, A., 26.12.2016, What is the crime rate at Metro and Tram Dubai? EREMNEWS. Available from: www.eremnews.com/news/arab-word/gcc/662724 [accessed: 10.07.2019].
Novaco, R. W., Stokols, D., Campbell, J. & Stokols, J. (1979) Transportation, stress, and community psychology, American Journal of Community Psychology, 7(4), 361–380.
Sarker, M., Asce, A., Morimoto, A., Koike, H. & Ono, A. (2002) Impact of transportation infrastructure development on modal choice, Journal of urban planning and development, 128(2), 59–76.
Simons, D. (2012) Common (mis) belief about memory: a replication and comparison of telephone and Mechanical Turk survey methods, PLoS ONE journal, 7(12), e51876.
United Nation Development Program (2009) Implementation of the Comprehensive and Long Term National Traffic and Transport Sector Strategy for Kuwait. Available from: http://www.undp.org/content/dam/kuwait/documents/project-documents/Human%20Development/General%20Directorate%20of%20Traffic%20Project%202009–2013%20SIGNED.pdf [accessed: 10.07.2019].
Wener, R. & Evans, G. (2011) Comparing stress of car and train commuters, Transportation research part F: Traffic Psychology and Behavior, 14(2), 111–116.
Van, H., Choocharukul, K. & Fuijii, S. (2014) The effect of attitudes toward cars and public transportation on behavioral intention in commuting mode choice: A comparison across six Asian countries, Transportation Research: Part A, Policy and Practice, 69, 36–44.
Xia, Y., Jun, C. & Wei, W. (2009), Travel characteristics and mode choice behavior of public transportation in China, International conference on transportation engineering, 2195–2200.
Yun, M., Liu, J. & Yang, X. (2011) Modeling on mode choice behavior based on trip chaining: A case study in Zhongahan City, In Icctp 2011: Towards Sustainable Transportation Systems, Reston, VA.
Internet sources
Alittihad: www.alittihad.ae/details.php?id=1668&y=2009 [accessed: 10.07.2019].
IEA Statistics: http://www.iea.org/stats/index.asp [accessed: 11.07.2019].
International Telecommunication Union: www.itu.int/net4/itu-d/icteye/CountryProfile.aspx [accessed: 10.07.2019].
Kuwait Chamber of Commerce & Industry:
http://www.kuwaitchamber.org.kw/echamber/website/index.jsp?pageID=ws_cmsmenu.jsp&fromPublic=yes&languge=en&-
rootMenu=291&menuID=291 [accessed: 10.07.2019].
Kuwait Online Government: 76Esraa Jamal, David Scott, Ahmed Idris, Gordon Lovegrove Investigating factors affecting the mode choices of commuters in Kuwait city & surrounding urban areas: http://www.e.gov.kw/sites/kgoenglish/portal/Pages/Visitors/About-Kuwait.aspx# [accessed: 10.07.2019].
Kuwait News Agency: http://www.kuna.net.kw/ArticleDetails.aspx?language=ar&id=1761721 [accessed: 10.07.2019].
SraayNews: https://twitter.com/SraayNews/status/276750824682713
088/photo/1 [accessed: 10.07.2019].
World Bank: http://data.worldbank.org [accessed: 11.07.2019].