Tour Bus Selection Model and Suggestions in Beijing

Due to the fact that tourism demands are not given full consideration in existing urban transportation planning, it imposes negative impacts on the travel of both local residents and visitors. In order to look into the existing situation of urban sightseeing activities and explore tour patterns, thus to plan tour bus routes more reasonably, this paper, based on survey data obtained from five scenery resorts in Beijing, along with the theory of BL model, establishes the tour bus selection model. The results show that tour period, original travel mode choice, the number of scenery resorts included in tour bus route, as well as cost are significant variables. A statistic test shows that the model is promising, with a goodness-of-fit of 0.6621. Then, the paper proposes six tour bus lines to connect main scenery resorts, along with suggestions on departure intervals, vehicle selection, etc. Moreover, quantitative and qualitative analyses are conducted to present travel mode share changing and tourism value upgrading after starting tour bus lines.