Understanding Suburban Travel Demand: Flexible Modelling With Revealed and Stated Choice Data

Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

2007

Subject Area

operations - frequency, ridership - mode choice, ridership - elasticity, ridership - modelling, ridership - demand, policy - fares, policy - parking, economics - willingness to pay, place - urban, place - low density, mode - bus, mode - mass transit

Keywords

Willingness to pay, Variability index, Travel time, Travel models (Travel demand), Travel frequency, Travel demand, Transit, Time, Suburbs, Stated preferences, Revealed preferences, Regulatory policy, Public transit, Policy, Policies, Parking costs, Mode choice, Modal choice, Mathematical models, Mass transit, Local transit, Level of service, Journey time, Income, Government policy, Flexible, Fares, Elasticity (Economics), Demand, Choice of transportation, Bus usage, Bus travel, Automobile use, Automobile usage, Automobile travel

Abstract

The authors analyse the choice of mode in suburban corridors using nested logit specifications with revealed and stated preference data. The latter were obtained from a choice experiment between car and bus, which allowed for interactions among the main policy variables: travel cost, travel time and frequency. The experiment also included parking cost and comfort attributes. The attribute levels in the experiment were adapted to travellers’ experience using their revealed preference information. Different model specifications were tested accounting for the presence of income effect, systematic taste variation, and incorporating the effect of latent variables. The authors also derived willingness-to-pay measures, such as the subjective value of time, that vary among individuals as well as elasticity values. Finally, the authors analysed the demand response to various policy scenarios that favour public transport use by considering improvements in level-of-service, fare reductions and/or increases in parking costs. In general, demand was shown to be more sensitive to policies that penalise the private car than those improving public transport.

Comments

Transportation Research Part A Home Page: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/09658564

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