Suggested Citation:
Makino, Keita, Junia Compostella, Alimurtaza Kothawala, Yongsung Lee, Giovanni Circella (2023)

"How Should I Get a Ride to the Airport?”: Ground Access to Northern California Airports

Prior studies of travel mode choice in airport ground transportation identified several important relationships between traveler/trip attributes and their selected access mode. However, those studies did not comprehensively account for qualitative aspects of ground access mode choice, such as general and transportation-specific attitudes and perception of mode-specific airport infrastructure. To add insights into air travelers’ ground transportation choices, this study utilized a dataset from an online survey targeting travelers in four major airports in Northern California in the post-pandemic era. In a multinomial logit model, we incorporated travelers’ socio-demographics, attitudes toward transportation and related topics (e.g., environmental friendliness), and opinions about transportation infrastructures and services (e.g., airport parking fees). From this, we identified relationships between air traveler attitudes or opinions and their mode choice not examined in prior studies. Specifically, travelers with pro-environment attitudes preferred public transit and ridehailing services over private vehicles, even when ridehailing services may not be more environmentally friendly than private vehicles. Regarding public transit, travelers are more likely to choose this often if they highly rate its service frequency and accessibility from their home to a nearby station. The results suggest policymakers, airport authorities, and transit agencies consider electrification of ridehailing fleets, expansion of bus and rail service availability to air travelers’ neighborhoods, and higher parking fees to reduce driving in private vehicles to the airport.

Conference paper for poster presentation: TRBAM-24-05933