Roles of accessibility and air-rail intermodality in shaping mobility patterns in mega-city regions: Behavioural insights from China.

This paper aims to understand mobility patterns in mega-city regions from perspectives of accessibility and air-rail intermodality. Travellers' preferences for intercity mode and its access and egress modes were simultaneously collected in the context of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei mega-city region. The accessibility of transport hubs and destinations was measured to enable interpreting mobility behaviour in three dimensions, i.e., travel mode decisions, departure transport hub decisions, and transport service decisions. The calibrated behavioural model highlights a series of determinants regarding level-of-service attributes, travel characteristics, accessibility, socio-demographics, and their interaction. Based on the behavioural insights, twenty domestic cities were selected as destinations for analysing the dynamics of mobility patterns in terms of the competition within the multi-airport system and air-rail cooperation potential in the long-haul market. The elasticity of shifts in transport demand between the primary and secondary airports in the Beijing multi-airport system was assessed under various pricing strategies, highlighting the vital role of the most accessible airport in air traveller decision-making. Moreover, the results underline the effect of air-rail intermodal service upgrades, e.g., offering baggage handling systems and flexible tickets, on stimulating air-rail intermodal mobility in the mega-city region. • Behavioural determinants of intermodal travellers. • Joint decisions on transport modes, hubs, and services. • Effect of accessibility on competitive relationships in multi-airport systems. • Market share of air-rail intermodality in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei mega-city region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]