How Does COVID-19 Affect People's Willingness to Customized Bus Travel

The customized bus (CB) is a user-oriented, environment-friendly travel mode that provides flexible, demand-responsive service. During the eruption of COVID-19, more and more people have cut back on conventional public transport, which is crowded with people in narrow and enclosed spaces. While CB with the service of "one seat for one person" and " one stop direct ", has attracted more and more attention. To better optimize CB operations in the post-COVID-19 world, it is necessary to explore how the epidemic has affected the willingness to choose CB (WTCC). This paper adopted the method of Logistic regression and Association rule analysis and found that the WTCC influencing factors include occupation, family size, age, one-way expense, travel purpose, and subway and ordinary bus service satisfaction during the epidemic. Based on the analysis, this paper divides CB users into five categories: risk-averse, price-sensitive, mode-induced, time-saving, and commuting-demand. Finally, management suggestions and CB promotion strategies were proposed to help target CB users, optimize CB service, and shape transportation policies. This paper is of great significance in providing references for seeking safe and green public transportation in the post-COVID-19 world