Pattern of Commuting: A Case Study in Aligarh City

Over recent years the phenomenon of commuting has become very much discussed issue as a consequence of rapid economic and population growth resulting in tremendous problems in and around the cities. Therefore, in present study an attempt has been made to analyze the spatial pattern of commuting in Aligarh city that is expressed in terms of direction of movements, distance they cover to commute, transport mode they use, the time they take to commute and the money they spend on commuting. The study is based on primary data generated through the field survey in Aligarh city carried out during the months of August and September, 2015. For data collection, 170 commuters were randomly selected from various places in and outside the Aligarh city. For the collection of data, the selected commuters were interviewed by using well-structured questionnaire. The study reveals that about forth-fifth commuters belong to young and mature working age group (21-45) while only the one-fifth of commuters is composed of old age group and the fraction of male commuters is higher (83.75 percent) as compared to females commuters (16.25 percent). The 72.75 percent of the commuters are from rural areas whereas only 27.25 percent belong to urban areas. The male commuters cover longer distance to commute than that of females and the probability of commuting is lowered when the distance is longer to be covered. Most of commuters depend on the modes of public transportation to reach to their work place on regular basis in Aligarh city. Moreover the time of commuting has been found being influenced greatly by the modes of commuting, commuting distance as well as the socio-economic status of commuters.