Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh Province, is one of the medium sized cities with the population around 259,913 inhabitants [1Statistical Year Book of Banda Aceh., Bureau of Statistics, Government of Aceh, .]. As with many medium cities in Indonesia, to date, the city has been urbanizing speedily and has experienced considerable changes in growing economy and motorization. Modern motorized society faces several externalities due to traffic congestion such as unwarranted travel times, air pollution, unnecessary energy consumption, and driver frustration [2S. Sugiarto, T. Miwa, H. Sato, and T. Morikawa, "Congestion charging: Influence of public consciousness on acceptability in Jakarta Metropolitan Area", The 21^st World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems., .Detroit USA]. These congestion-manifested problems have also extended to the city of Banda Aceh as extraordinary growth in motorization has taken place. Accordingly, the government of Aceh needs to act strategically to deal with motorization related problems.

Like many other rapidly growing cities in Indonesia, the city center of Banda Aceh has not run away from the influences of impecunious public transportation services such as insufficient quality of services, lack of safety for passengers, and inefficient capacity. Moreover, the city’ public transportation is essentially served by so-called vans “labi-labi” and small buses with capacities of about 10 and 35 passengers, respectively. Furthermore, the current public transportation system is unsuccessful in coping with the growing spatial and demographics of the city. People have difficulties in accessing the basic requirements of transportation services. Admittance to quality public transportation services is exceptionally problematic, and this is an essential problem for residents especially low-income commuters’ needs for adequate access to public transport as basic municipal facilities.

To deal with the poor public transport services, the government have designed a proposal for the bus reform policy. That is, the government aims to replace conventional public transport into a more convenient bus system by changing technology and system operation. The bus reform called“Trans Koetaradja” is a new technology and bus system with a capacity of 60 passengers equipped with an air conditioner, providing more comfort to the passengers. The needs of public transport reforms are to achieve efficiency and sufficiency. However, in particular for developing countries such as Indonesia, public transport reforms have to meet other goals namely affordable, accessibility, and convenience.

The Trans Koetaradja now is under trial runs, a free of charge service is applied within running corridors. If this proposed bus system would succeed, then the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system will be applied in the next planning step. Studies have shown that bus reform policy such as BRT has appeared as a cost-effective public transport alternative with noteworthy possibility for Jakarta [3P.J. Ernst, "Initiating Bus Rapid Transit in Jakarta, Indonesia", Transp. Res. Rec., no. 1903, pp. 20-26.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0361198105190300103] , 4Y.O. Susilo, "T.B, Joewono, W. Santosa, and D. Parikesit, “A reflection of motorization and public transport in Jakarta Metropolitan Area", IATSS Res., vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 59-68.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0386-1112(14)60184-9] ]. Besides, providing appropriate of the public transportation will deliver the effectiveness in reducing congestion related problem such as cutting down CO2 emissions, increasing the efficiency of fuel use, as well as make the society more equitable regarding mobility [5R.J. Shapiro, K.A. Hassett, and F.S. Arnold, Conserving energy and preserving the environment: The role of public transportation., The American Public Transportation Association, ., 6Public transportation: Benefits for the 21st century., The American Public Transportation Association, .]. Approaches to developing public services that would perform well could be taken into consideration in the comprehensive transportation planning policy [7S. Fujii, and T.H. Van, "Psychological Determinants of the Intention to Use the Bus in Ho Chi Minh City", J. Public Transp., vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 97-110.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.5038/2375-0901.12.1.6] ]. Encouraging and improving public transportation could get more extensive attention and become a critical issue in developing countries. Furthermore, Fujii and Van [7S. Fujii, and T.H. Van, "Psychological Determinants of the Intention to Use the Bus in Ho Chi Minh City", J. Public Transp., vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 97-110.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.5038/2375-0901.12.1.6] ] also recommended that the solution can be provided by combining among “hard policy” measures such as improving the quality services and the “soft policy” measures such as changing travel behavior by adopting mobility management.

It is observed that travel behavior changes are substantially related to psychological motivations. In this regards, there are countless studies attempting to comprehend the subjective intentions that affect the public in supporting specific transport policies. For instance, Eriksson et al. [8L. Eriksson, J. Garvill, and A.M. Nordlund, "Acceptability of single and combined transport policy measures: the importance of environmental and policy specific beliefs", Transp. Res. Part A, vol. 42, pp. 1117-1128.] verified that the individual’s subjective indicators related to problem awareness, policy fairness, and perceived effectiveness are documented as a vital aspect distressing the acceptability of transport pricing proposal. Furthermore, Fujii [9S. Fujii, "Environmental concern, attitude toward frugality, and ease of behavior as determinants of pro-environmental behavior intentions", J. Environ. Psychol., vol. 26, pp. 262-268.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2006.09.003] ] and Gärling et al. [10T. Gärling, S. Fujii, A. Gärling, and C. Jakobsson, "Moderating effects of social value orientation on determinants of pro-environmental behavior intention", J. Environ. Psychol., vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 1-9.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0272-4944(02)00081-6] ] established that the emotional intention related to infringement of freedom, policy fairness, problem awareness, and perceived effectiveness have directly and indirectly contributed to the acceptance of the policy. These psychological aspects indicate that a wide range of psychological motivations explains the acceptability of transport policies.

In the context of developing country perspectives, Sugiarto et al. [11S. Sugiarto, T. Miwa, H. Sato, and T. Morikawa, "Explaining differences in acceptance determinants towards congestion charging policies in Indonesia and Japan", J. Urban Plann. Dev., vol. 143, no. 2, pp. 1-12.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)UP.1943-5444.0000360] -13S. Sugiarto, T. Miwa, and T. Morikawa, "Recursive bivariate response models of the ex-ante intentions to link perceived acceptability among charge and refund options for alternative road pricing schemes", Transp. Lett., vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 52-63.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19427867.2016.1228747] ] scrutinized citizen’s choice behaviors by taking into consideration observed and unobserved variables. They revealed that unobserved factors namely recognition to the proposed policy, the fairness of the system, awareness of the congestion-related problems and inhibition of freedom of movement have significant encouragement on acceptance’s determinant to transport pricing measures in Jakarta. Moreover, Joewono and Kubota [14T.B. Joewono, and H. Kubota, "User perception of private paratransit operation in Indonesia", J. Public Transp., vol. 10, no. 5, pp. 99-118.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.5038/2375-0901.10.4.5] ] revealed that there is a substantial association between global satisfaction and devotion to use public transport services. An investigation by Fujii and Van [7S. Fujii, and T.H. Van, "Psychological Determinants of the Intention to Use the Bus in Ho Chi Minh City", J. Public Transp., vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 97-110.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.5038/2375-0901.12.1.6] ] found that the psychological determinants to the habit of using bus system in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) city were unobserved factors such as moral concerns and the perceiving of the service quality, and they concluded that grounded on psychological variables, the mobility management actions may well be functional in encouraging people to use the bus.

Given the above background, two hypotheses were made in this study. We hypothesized that (1) perceived appropriateness of the policy and awareness of the problem of private mode of transportation would have a positive effect on their intentions to support proposed policy; (2) determinant of private mode dependency and inhibition of freedom of movement/less accessibility of the bus would have an adverse consequence on such intentions. Consequently, this study looks at the citizens’ subjective response to the acceptance from the public regarding proposed Trans Koetaradja. Revealing travel behavior of private mode users using psychological approaches is crucially important to develop better mobility management in private mode dependence city. With this, an enthusiastic experimental investigation of citizen’s intention to receive the bus reform policy by seeing an emotional influence is obtainable in this study. This effort might be of precise assistance in designing a more efficient policy for the advancement of a bus reform policy by capturing some of the intelligent communication strategies for the development of mobility management. To conclude, a healthier thoughtful of local characteristics approach, such as understanding the effect of motorized traffic in a particular effect of motorcyclists on the demand of trip, is essential for successful transport policy measures for the betterment of the society [15S.M. Saleh, S. Sugiarto, A. Hilal, and D. Ariansyah, "A study on the traffic impact of the road corridors due to flyover", AIP Conf. Proc., vol. 1903, p. 060005.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.5011559] , 16R. Aggraini, S. Sugiarto, and H. Pramanda, "Factors affecting trip generation of motorcyclist for the purpose of non-mandatory activities", AIP Conf. Proc., vol. 1903, no. 060011, .
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.5011565] ].

A Structural Equation Modeling of Confirmatory Factor Analysis (SEM-CFA) method is implemented to delve more deeply in the respondent’s psychological intentions. Jöreskog [23K.G. Jöreskog, "A general approach to confirmatory maximum likelihood factor analysis", Psychometrika, vol. 34, pp. 183-202.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF02289343] ] defines two types of analysis based on common factors namely Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and CFA. CFA is a category of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) that promises unambiguously the measurement of relationship (measurement models) such as relationship among indicators (e.g., test items, test scores, behavioral observation ratings) and latent variables [24A.T. Brown, Confirmatory factor analysis for applied research., 2nd edThe Guilford Press, .]. The central concern of CFA is modeling factors or latent variables that are not directly measured but manifestation from psychological perceptions or indicators.

In this study, SEM-CFA parameters were achieved using IBM AMOS version 24. We used Maximum Likelihood Estimator (MLE) to estimate path coefficients of indicators and latent constructs. We used different fit indexes to test the model: the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA = 0.059), the Adjusted Goodness of Fit Index (AGFI = 0.915), the Comparative Fit Index and the Tucker-Leis index (CFI = 0.939, TFI =0.972), and χ²/degrees of freedom (χ²/df = 2.58). The fit indices demonstrate a substantially acceptable model [11S. Sugiarto, T. Miwa, H. Sato, and T. Morikawa, "Explaining differences in acceptance determinants towards congestion charging policies in Indonesia and Japan", J. Urban Plann. Dev., vol. 143, no. 2, pp. 1-12.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)UP.1943-5444.0000360] , 12S. Sugiarto, T. Miwa, and T. Morikawa, "Inclusion of latent constructs in utilitarian resource allocation model for analyzing revenue spending options in congestion charging policy", Transp. Res. Part A, vol. 103, pp. 36-53.].

Regarding latent constructs, Fig. (3) depicts the association between indicators and latent variables (i.e., PAP, PDC, APS, IMA, and CAP). Observinging the latent variable of PAP, the indicators of “correct policy to deal with motorized traffic Acceptable policy”, “the government has given an understanding of the policy” and “appropriate policy to reduce congestion” has a positive value at 1% level of significance. It is acknowledged that these latent variables would entertained as an advancement in the acceptance of such policy. Looking at the determinant PDC, the indicators of “like to drive private-mode (car or motorcycle)” and “public transport is expensive and has a limited route” are pointedly negatively signed in the data set. These sign representing the latent construct of PDC would diminish acceptance of the proposed policy.

Table 3
Distribution of the intention to accept the bus reform policy.

Table 4
Description of latent variables and psychological indicators.

Fig. (3) Diagram of SEM-CFA: loading path among latent variables .(ellipses) and indicators (rectangular); all path coefficient significant at 1% error level.

Further investigation of the determinant APS reveals that all psychological indicators have a significant positive correlation. It seems that people in Banca Aceh are scared of an increased accident rate in the city, congestion is getting worse in cities and emissions and noise are getting worse in cities. Therefore, they tend to agree and recognize APS as the positive determinant. Furthermore, the indicators of “the bus only serve limited routes/access” and “activities would decrease if using the bus” are showing significantly positive marks at the determinant of IMA. These sign reflect that the latent variable of IMA would act as a barrier to the acceptance of the policy. Finally, concerning CAP, the path coefficients for “correct and acceptable policy” and “suitable policy to deal with traffic and environmental problem” have a positive sign in our data set. It may partially indicate the appropriateness of the Bus Reform Policy proposed by the government.

Fig. (4) Depicts the causal relationships and their strength among the acceptance of latent variable and psychological determinants. The latent variable of “Perceived Appropriateness of the Policy (PAP)” and “Awareness of problem private mode in society (APS)” have shown the most substantial effect, and it has a significant contribution in the acceptance of the proposed policy. However, psychological determinants of “Private mode dependency (PDC)” and “Inhibition of freedom of movement/less accessibility of the bus (IMA)” are regarded as the most influencing factors for diminishing scheme acceptance. It means that people who rely on the private mode are less likely to be worried about the policy, and they may feel more inhibition of freedom of movement/less accessibility of the bus if the proposed policy would be applied. Furthermore, this result confirms our hypothesis mentioned in the introduction of this paper. That is a determinant of private mode dependency and inhibition of freedom of movement/less accessibility of the bus would have an adverse consequence on such intentions.

Fig. (4) Diagram of SEM-CFA: Loading path among latent variables (all path coefficient significant at 1% error level).

Our study scrutinized the effect of many emotional influences for acceptance of bus reform policy in Banda Aceh. The CFA summarized judgments of respondents about various aspects of the unobserved variables into the four factors of the appropriateness of the policy, private mode dependency, the consciousness of problem private mode in society, and inhibition of freedom of movement/less accessibility of the bus. The SEM-CFA empirical findings of the behavioral intention with four latent variables as explanatory depicted that “perceived appropriateness of the policy” and “the consciousness of problem private mode in society” appears to be the vital direct factors leading to recognizing the effect of acceptance of the proposed scheme. However, the effect of latent variables of “private mode dependency” and “inhibition of freedom of movement/less accessibility of the bus” reveals negative determinants to the acceptance of the policy. Our findings suggest that mobility management actions could be considered to change the behavior of private mode users toward public transport use by implementing bus reform policy.

Our empirical results indicate that private mode dependency and less accessibility of the bus system has shown a fundamentally significant effect on the approval of the proposed scheme. This may partially be due to limited understanding of the benefit proposed scheme. In line with the study by Fujii and Van [7S. Fujii, and T.H. Van, "Psychological Determinants of the Intention to Use the Bus in Ho Chi Minh City", J. Public Transp., vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 97-110.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.5038/2375-0901.12.1.6] ], Eriksson et al. [8L. Eriksson, J. Garvill, and A.M. Nordlund, "Acceptability of single and combined transport policy measures: the importance of environmental and policy specific beliefs", Transp. Res. Part A, vol. 42, pp. 1117-1128.], Fujii [9S. Fujii, "Environmental concern, attitude toward frugality, and ease of behavior as determinants of pro-environmental behavior intentions", J. Environ. Psychol., vol. 26, pp. 262-268.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2006.09.003] ] and Gärling et al. [10T. Gärling, S. Fujii, A. Gärling, and C. Jakobsson, "Moderating effects of social value orientation on determinants of pro-environmental behavior intention", J. Environ. Psychol., vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 1-9.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0272-4944(02)00081-6] ] it has been verified that the individual’s subjective indicators related to problem awareness, policy fairness, and perceived effectiveness are recognized as a vital aspect distressing the acceptability. The emotional intention related to infringement of freedom, policy fairness, problem awareness, and perceived effectiveness have directly and indirectly contributed to the acceptance of the policy of transport policy. Further confirmation revealed that unobserved factors namely recognition to the proposed policy, the fairness of the system, awareness to the congestion-related problems and inhibition of freedom of movement have the utmost significant encouragement on acceptance’s determinant [19S. Sugiarto, S.M. Saleh, R. Anggraini, and M. Merfazi, "Investigating Public Perceptions and Its Implication toward Trans Koetaradja Policy Considering Latent Motivation, IOP Conference Series", Mater. Sci. Eng., . (article in press), 22S. Sugiarto, T. Miwa, H. Sato, and T Morikawa, "The tendency of public’s attitudes to evaluate urban congestion charging policy in Asian megacity perspective: Case a study in Jakarta, Indonesia", Case Studies on Transport Policye, . an article in press
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cstp.2018.09.010] ].

Therefore, promotion and increasing detailed knowledge on the merit prosed policy may need to be considered as recommended in [7S. Fujii, and T.H. Van, "Psychological Determinants of the Intention to Use the Bus in Ho Chi Minh City", J. Public Transp., vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 97-110.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.5038/2375-0901.12.1.6] , 22S. Sugiarto, T. Miwa, H. Sato, and T Morikawa, "The tendency of public’s attitudes to evaluate urban congestion charging policy in Asian megacity perspective: Case a study in Jakarta, Indonesia", Case Studies on Transport Policye, . an article in press
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cstp.2018.09.010] ]. Moreover, the result of this study could provide valuable insight for the policymakers in designing effective and acceptable travel demand management policy in particular in the context of emerging countries such as Indonesia.