STUDENT MOBILITY AFTER TERMINAL RELOCATION: EVIDENCE WITH SYSTEMS DYNAMICS AND POLICY EVALUATION IN AN INTERMEDIARY CITY

Abstract

The relocation of the transport center from the urban center to the far north increased the effective distance to the university area, reconfiguring times, costs and modal choice of student travel. With a mixed sequential design and abductive approach, probabilistic surveys, interviews and focus groups were integrated with a Systems Dynamics model to simulate intervention scenarios. The findings show low adoption of the new terminal (≈47%), high participation of motorcycles (≈44%) and persistence of motorcycle taxis (≈7%), associated with penalized transfers and double payments. In the simulation, the direct route to the university area reduces travel time ≈23% and the daily cost ≈34% compared to the trend; A high-capacity corridor with tariff integration achieves greater reductions in time and cost and increases satisfaction (≈4.4/5). It is concluded that tariff integration, dedicated service (frequencies ≤10 min) and inter-institutional governance are levers to correct access inequities. The work provides a replicable framework based on accessibility and causal simulation to evaluate infrastructural decisions in intermediary cities.