Thredbo 16 Conference

Thredbo16 was organised by the “International Conference Series on Competition and Ownership in Land Passenger Transport (Thredbo Series)” in August 2019 at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Thredbo 16 was hosted by Nanyang Technological University and the Land Transport Authority (LTA) of Singapore. The Thredbo Series is directed towards policy makers, planners, decision makers on infrastructure and service operators, consultants, researchers, academics and students.  It is an international forum for examining passenger transport and ownership issues, reporting on recent research and experience and developing conclusions on key issues.

Thredbo 16 conference was split into eight workshops (thematic groups) where presentations and focused discussions took place over two days with the same members.  Reports were written by members of each workshop and presented on the final morning of the conference.

Augustus Ababio-Donkor presented his paper in workshop 8 “Beyond the Farebox: Sustainable Funding of Public Transport by Better Understanding Service Values.”  He presented part of his PhD research work on: “The role of personal norms in the choice of mode for commuting”.  This paper draws upon the theories of consumer behaviour and recent examples of latent and hybrid choice models to develop a latent choice model.  The study incorporated subjective variables (social and personal norms) into a choice model with objective variables such as household income, age, household size, distance to bus stop, and car availability to investigate transport choice for commuting. Using structural equation modelling, the study develops a measurement and path model to investigate the influence of the subjective variables on transport mode choice.  The findings suggest that personal norms have significant impact on transport decisions and choices than social norm and provide an explanation on how personal norm may influence choice of transport for commuting.  The implication of the results is that perception and attitudes could have a significant sway on the choice of transport for commuting.

The conference creates a platform for focused and sustained discussions between industry operators, policy makers and, academics and students.  Augustus found this was a great opportunity for discussing his research work in operational and policy context together with other academics and students, policy makers and industry operators to write a report based on the presentations and intensive discussions centred on the presentations and the theme of the workshop.  He would recommend the Thredbo conference to other research students.