In the past decade, because of the increase urban migration as well as increase in the number of vehicles in the urban area such as Manila, traffic congestion has become a serious problem. This is the most obvious along major arterials such as EDSA. As a response to the worsening traffic congestion problem, the mass rail transit MRT was introduced as an alternative mode to buses and jeepneys. The objective of mass transit is to ease the volume of traffic along a transportation corridor. But Taft/Rizal Avenue still remains congested despite the presence of LRT 1. The thrust of this research is to investigate the factors that will encourage the bus passenger to shift to mass rail transit to ease the traffic congestion. The study focused on examining the transferability, both time and space, of the 1987 LRT-Jeepney Mode Choice Model in identifying the variables affecting public transport mode choice behavior along EDSA after MRT 3 bagan its operation. Due to the non-transferability of the 1987 model attributed to the difference in the weight of variables for the decision mode choice from those a decade ago, the 2001 MRT 3 Demand Forecasting Model was developed. the results of the model analysis shoed that total travel time, fare, and acess and egress distances are important variables for the decision of mode choice between teh MRT 3 and the bus. This study highlights the significant variables and identifies the factors that affect the passengers' decisions to use the MRT 3. After developing the new model, the elesticity analysis, which is one of the most effective analyses to forecast traffic demand, was used. The results of the analysis revealed that total travel time has a larger elasticity than others. However, a shorter travel time, cheaper fare, and a shorter sum of access and egress distance in MRT increases the elasticity for the marginal demand of MRT mode choice, that is, more passengers will shift from bus to MRT 3.
