Hindawi Publishing Corporation Mathematical Problems in Engineering Volume 2016, Article ID 5293210, 10 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2016/5293210 Research Article A Joint Modeling Analysis of Passengers’ Intercity Travel Destination and Mode Choices in Yangtze River Delta Megaregion of China Yanli Wang,1 Bing Wu,1 Zhi Dong,2 and Xin Ye1 1 Key Laboratory of Road and Traffic Engineering of Ministry of Education, School of Transportation Engineering, Tongji University, 4800 Cao’an Road, Shanghai 201804, China 2School of Highway, Chang’an University, Xi’an 710064, China Correspondence should be addressed to Xin Ye; [email protected] Received 17 March 2016; Revised 14 June 2016; Accepted 20 June 2016 Academic Editor: Yakov Strelniker Copyright © 2016 Yanli Wang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Joint destination-mode travel choice models are developed for intercity long-distance travel among sixteen cities in Yangtze River Delta Megaregion of China. The model is developed for all the trips in the sample and also by two different trip purposes, work- related business and personal business trips, to accommodate different time values and attraction factors. A nested logit modeling framework is applied to model trip destination and mode choices in two different levels, where the lower level is a mode choice model and the upper level is a destination choice model. The utility values from various travel modes in the lower level are summarized into a composite utility, which is then specified into the destination choice model as an intercity impedance factor. The model is then applied to predict the change in passenger number from Shanghai to Yangzhou between scenarios withand without high-speed rail service to demonstrate the applicability. It is helpful for understanding and modeling megaregional travel destination and mode choice behaviors in the context of developing country. 1. Introduction Development and Reform Commission [7, 8]. Those regions coverlessthan10%ofthelandbutaccommodatemorethan A megaregion (also known as megalopolis or megapoli- one-third of the population and create more than a half tancity)canbedefinedasachainofroughlyadjacent of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the entire country. metropolitan areas with strong social and economic linkages There are also several other megaregions being formed and [1]. Megaregions are rising around the world. America 2050 developed, which will allow more Chinese people to live in [2], a program of the Regional Plan Association, has identified urbanareasandenjoyurbanlife. eleven megaregions in North America. In Europe, except The formation and development of a megaregion largely for some well-known megaregions within a country (e.g., depend on its intercity transportation system that needs London metropolitan area, Paris metropolitan area), there to be efficient and convenient enough to support highly are even some transnational megaregions, like Blue Banana, frequent and intense movements of passengers and freights being formed across countries [3–5]. There are also several between cities in the region. Among all those megaregions in megaregions being developed in other continents, such as China, Yangtze River Delta Megaregion is the largest one in Sydney Region in Australia, Tokyo urban agglomeration in terms of population (about 110 million) and economic size Asia, the megacity of Cairo in Africa, and the megacity of Sao (annual GDP is nearly 10 trillion RMB Yuan). As per “the PauloinSouthAmerica[6]. National Urban System Plan for 2005–2020” compiled by the With rapid urbanization in China, ten major megare- Ministry of Construction in 2006, this megaregion consists gions (also called urban agglomeration) are being formed in of 16 cities including its central city Shanghai, the highly China according to the research supported by the National developed city Suzhou, Jiangsu Province’ capital Nanjing, and 2 Mathematical Problems in Engineering Some researchers conducted travel survey to observe the characteristic of passengers’ intercity travels and their prefer- ences on travel choices [9, 10]. Some studies show that trip purpose affects mode choice [11], and market segmentation is important for model development [12, 13]. Thus, intercity mode choice models are usually developed by trip purposes. In the literature, two trip purposes, business and tourism, are usually differentiated for mode choice model development. Dong et al. developed a fractional multinomial logit model toanalyzemodechoiceofintercitybusinesstripsinYangtze River Megaregion [14, 15]. Manssour et al. developed a binary logitmodelformodechoiceofintercitybusinesstripsin Libya [16]. It is also found that the socioeconomic attributes and land use are significant factors to influence mode choice [11, 17, 18]. Thrane examined tourists’ long-distance travel mode choices by developing a multinomial logit model [18]. CohenandHarrisanalyzedmodechoiceoftripsvisiting friends and relatives [19]. Figure1:SixteencitiesofYangtzeRiverDeltaMegaregion. Meanwhile, the research on intercity trip destination choice is mainly conducted for tourists’ intercity travel, where mode choice is also considered in a destination choice model [20]. Destination choice models are also developed for Zhejiang Province’ capital Hangzhou (see Section 4, Figure 1 intracity trips. When a destination choice model is built up for and Table 1 for detailed information). Among many of those intracity trips, mode choice is usually also incorporated as an cities, there are not only interconnected expressways but also important explanatory variable [21, 22]. high-speed rails that can operate trains at a speed of 180 mph. As Koppelman indicated in 1989, the intercity travel For example, it takes only 1 hour in a high-speed train to travel decisions are interrelated and cannot be dealt with separately; between Shanghai and Hangzhou, which are more than 100 a joint model is therefore needed to better address inter- miles away from one to the other. Such a multimodal intercity relations among multiple travel decisions [23]. Actually, a transportation system can greatly strengthen connections joint model for travel destination and mode choice is not amongcitiesandtherebyimprovetheirmutualcollaborations anewmodelingtechnique.Asearlyasin1981,Southworth and enhance competitiveness of the entire megaregion. developed such a joint model for interrelated mode and It is highly desired to choose this megaregion as a destination choices [24]. Afterwards, many joint models typical example to investigate how a multimodal intercity are developed for travels within an urban area [25, 26]. transportation system aids in forming and developing a However, few studies are found to develop a joint mode- megaregion by strengthening connections among its cities. It destination choice model for a megaregional area possibly is critical to understand the joint destination and mode choice due to the lack of survey data on megaregional intercity behaviors of intercity travelers within the entire megaregion. long-distance travels. Yao and Morikawa developed a nested This kind of study can provide valuable references for future structure of integrated intercity travel demand model for transportation planning and development in China and the induceddemandandappliedthemodeltoevaluateintercity rest of the world, where new megaregions are gradually being transport projects in Japan [27]. The intercity trips were formed and developed. classified into business and nonbusiness trips. Their study is The remainder of the paper is organized as below. focused on an intercity corridor along six megaregions, rather Relevant literature will be first reviewed in Section 2, while than inside a megaregion (the mean distance of trips in the the modeling methodology will be detailed in Section 3. Revealed Preference and Stated Preference surveys is larger Section 4 will introduce the procedure to collect all kinds than 300 km, including air trips). However, most intercity of data for model development and provide descriptions for trips in a megaregion are less than 300 km and therefore travel the collected data. Model estimation and simulation results modes generally do not include airplane. Thus, there is a lack will be discussed in Sections 5 and 6, respectively. Finally, of papers in the literature on the topic of joint destination- conclusions and discussions will be made in Section 7. mode choice model for intercity trips within a megaregion. Besides, most existing studies are conducted in the 2. Literature Review context of developed countries but it is rare to see similar work in the context of a developing country like China. Many megaregional areas appear with the development of In fact, due to economic and cultural differences between transportation system that closely connects adjacent cities. In developing and developed countries, megaregional travel this context, intercity passenger travels are of more concern mode choice behaviors are quite different. Take US as an for researchers. The research on passengers’ intercity travel is example, the market share of auto mode is dominant but mainly focused on travel mode choice and destination choice in this megaregion of China the rail and bus modes take models. more than 40%. In particular, the development of high-speed Mathematical Problems in Engineering 3 Table