Abstract:
Severe traffic congestion in main urbanized cities is one of the major development
bottlenecks Sri Lanka is currently dealing with. Existing road capacity is insufficient to
meet the transport requirements of the increasing vehicle population. As statistics of the
Department of Motor Traffic indicate, the vehicle population has increased by 8.6%
average from 2008 to 2018 which is greater than both the average population and
economic growth of Sri Lanka. This study mainly suggested attracting private vehicle
users to improved public transport as a sustainable solution to this severe traffic
congestion. Therefore, this study attempted to address the question of what is
people’s Willingness to Pay for improved public transport to reduce traffic congestion. To
investigate the hypothesis, the study was conducted in Kandy and primary data were
collected from 389 individuals by conducting interviews based on structured
questionnaires. Willingness to Pay for improved public transport was estimated by
using the Single Bound Dichotomous Choice method. The study found that the
mean Willingness to Pay for improved public transport is LKR 162 under the 99%
confidence level. This is approximately four times the current ticket price which
emphasizes people’s expectations and requirements on improved public transport. Also,
survey results emphasized that the mean distance from the surveyed area to the city is 15
km approximately. It highlights that the current bus fare of LKR 2.33 per km gets
increased to LKR 10 per km with improved public transport. Further, results revealed that
income and travel time as major determinants of peoples’ Willingness to Pay towards
improved public transport. Meantime, educational level, employment category, and age
also have a considerable impact. Based on these findings, this study argued that the public
is willing to substitute private transport with improved public transport if certain
conditions are met which leads to a significant reduction of traffic congestion.
Keywords: Kandy, Public transport, Traffic congestion, Willingness to pay
