The effect of railway accessibility on the choice of university studies

The choice of university studies is one of the main socio-economic categories that is affected by the quality of public transport services and in particular rail transport. This category is characterized to cover medium to long distances to reach, every day, the place of study. for this reason, among the urban sustainable policies, the mobility choices of the university students have long been analysed in literature. The aim of this paper was to estimate the effect of railway accessibility on the choice of university studies. The university of Naples federico II (Italy) is taken as the case study. In the spring of 2014, using the database obtained from the registry office of the university the following were investigated: - the origin of the daily trips (residential address); - the trip frequency and the departure/arriving time; - the modes or sequence of modes used; - the perceived public transport quality (e.g. travel time, comfort). To evaluate the catchment area of the university and for analysing what attributes influence the choice of university studies (in particular the 'weight' of a specific railway accessibility), a regression model was used. among the model attributes educational course variables, home-university distance and a constant-specific attribute were also considered. The result of the study shows the surprising role of railway accessibility in the choice of university studies; to travel from a station within 900 m from home is equivalent (in terms of perceived utility) to travel every day a distance greater than 28 km to reach the university.