Does public transport fare discount policy affect travel choices of the elderly? An empirical study based on Chongqing, China

As population aging accelerates, public transport fare discounts have become a crucial tool for cities to address the mobility needs of the elderly. This study aims to optimize such policies by examining the psychological decision-making process of elderly bus users, using survey data from Chongqing, China, collected in 2022 (N = 556) and validated with a second cross-sectional survey conducted in 2026 (N = 174). It investigates how socioeconomic characteristics and subjective attitudes influence travel decisions under different discount scenarios.

Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) is applied to confirm the impact paths of elderly transit policy acceptance, bus travel dependency, and discount schemes on travel mode choice. In addition, Gradient Boosting Decision Trees (GBDT) are employed to explore the non-linear interactions among individual attributes and subjective attitudes in the context of varying discount scenarios. The results reveal that higher discount rates significantly encourage elderly individuals to choose public transport.

Bus travel dependency emerges as the most robust predictor of mode choice, validated across both survey waves. The older elderly (over 75 years) show higher sensitivity to discounts despite lower baseline travel willingness. Furthermore, discount policies have a stronger incentive effect on groups with non-rigid travel demands.

The findings suggest that tailored discount strategies, combined with enhanced service quality and targeted policy promotion, can increase public transport use among the elderly. Such refinements are expected to improve social participation, enhance quality of life, and provide empirical guidance for optimizing elderly bus fare discount policies. Chongqing Jiaotong University, Chongqing, China Intelligent Policing Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Luzhou, China Chongqing Institute of Landscape Architecture, Chongqing, China The authors declare no competing interests.

This questionnaire survey was reviewed by the Ethics Review Committee of Chongqing Jiaotong University and confirmed to be exempt from full ethical review in accordance with Article 32(2) of the Measures for Ethical Review of Life Science and Medical Research Involving Human Subjects (Guo Wei Ke Jiao Fa [2023] No. 4), because it uses anonymized survey data, causes no bodily harm, and does not involve sensitive personal information (approval dated December 22, 2021). All participants were aged 60 and above and received an informed consent form before completing the questionnaire. The form explained the research purpose, the voluntary nature of participation, and the right to withdraw at any time without consequences.

Participants indicated their consent by checking the “I agree” box on the form before proceeding, and only those who checked the box were included.No identifiable personal information was collected; all data were anonymized and used exclusively for academic research. Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material.