Modeling Willingness-to-Pay Values for Rural Bus Attributes Under Different Trip Purposes

In many developing countries, rural residents are essentially captive to the bus transportation system. Rural bus services generally are slow, unreliable and uncomfortable, but improvement in service is often associated with an increase in fares. This paper focuses on estimating willingness-to-pay (WTP) values considering both quantitative and qualitative attributes of rural bus service in a developing country context. Using stated choice data, multinomial logit (MNL) and random parameter logit (RPL) models with constrained triangular distribution for random parameters are developed for various trip purposes. WTP values are estimated for travel time, travel discomfort and headway of service. Findings indicate that passenger's marginal WTP is not the same for all attributes of travel. WTP values of job trips are highest among all trip purposes, followed by recreation and business trips. Values for discomfort are found to be highly sensitive to trip purpose. A comparison of WTP values from the two models showed that estimates from the MNL model are generally lower than those of the RPL model, indicating that RPL models might be more suitable for estimating WTP values since they relax the restrictions imposed by MNL.

• Record URL:
  • http://journals.oregondigital.org/trforum/article/viewFile/911/806
• 
• Summary URL:
  • http://journals.oregondigital.org/trforum/article/view/911
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/10461469
• Authors:
  • Phanikumar, C V
  • Maitra, Bhargab
• Publication Date: 2006

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Features: References; Tables;
• Pagination: pp 31-44
• Serial:
  • Journal of the Transportation Research Forum
  • Volume: 45
  • Issue Number: 2
  • Publisher: Transportation Research Forum
  • ISSN: 1046-1469
  • Serial URL: https://trforum.org/journal-of-the-trf/
• Publication flags:

  Open Access (libre)

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Bus transportation; Bus travel; Developing countries; Economic models; Estimating; Headways; Logits; Multinomial logits; Passenger comfort; Passengers; Rural transportation; Travel time; Trip purpose
• Uncontrolled Terms: Random parameter logit models; Stated choice; Willingness to pay approach
• Subject Areas: Economics; Motor Carriers; Passenger Transportation; Public Transportation; Society;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01033855
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Oct 3 2006 7:44AM