FUEL PUMP PRICE INCREASE EFFECTS ON TRAVEL BEHAVIOURS OF BAUCHI URBAN RESIDENTS, NIGERIA

Abstract

Recently, intra–urban travel has increased enormously acrossurban areas. Socio-economic factors of individual attitudes regarding preferences on travel are important determinants of urban travel patterns and have significant impact on travel behaviours. Generally, income, travel distance, travel mode and cost are the main factors influencing travel behaviour. Fuel pump price increased,as travel cost sources, have substantially affected urban travel behaviours, as travellers are more sensitive to the cost anxiety of travelling. It was found that, cost of travel is the most influential factor that scored 23.7% of the aggregate value, then travel distance 16.5% and travel purpose 11.2%. Convenience, safety, comfort and freedom form the moderate importance scores 9.35%, 9.03%, 8.4% and 7.8% correspondingly while, flexibility, speed and prestige formed the least frequencies of 5.6%, 5.0% and 3.4% respectively. The study explored qualitative research methodology, expert interview was used in data collection and NVivo 10.0 was used in analysis. This is because travel behaviour has multifaceted dimension of hidden explanations of people’s perception, attitudes, feelings or sentiments and behaviours, qualitative method is more appropriate instrument to explore these complexity.Therefore, fuel pump price increased, as travel cost sources had affected the attitudes of vehicle usage and travel behaviours across all the income levels of the urbanites. Policy makers should consider the multiplier effects on fuel subsidy removal on people wellbeing.