FUZZY LOGIC APPROACH IN MODE CHOICE MODELLING FOR EDUCATION TRIPS: A CASE STUDY OF INDIAN METROPOLITAN CITY

Abstract

Urban population in India has increased significantly from 62 million in 1951 to 378 million in 2011 in six decades. It is estimated to reach 540 million by the year 2021. This reflects on likely pressure on urban transportation system. The situation necessarily calls plans for balanced personal and public transport system. Mandatory trips bear more importance in this regard owing to their higher share in urban trips. Mode share and their choice behaviour in estimation of such trips play vital role in analysing and boosting sustainable transportation. Logit modelling approach is the conventional method generally adopted for analysing mode choice behaviour, which is based on the principle of random utility maximization derived from econometric theory. However, such models cannot address uncertainity prevailing in the choice decisions. On the contrary, fuzzy logic bypasses the binary crisp derivations of the inputs and accepts multivalued inputs in linguistic expressions, which make possible to resemble the human behaviour closely. Therefore, the attempt here is to develop fuzzy logic based mode choice model for education trips, which constitutes a good share in mandatory trips by covering various income groups of Indian society.