IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/transa/v147y2021icp61-75.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Travel preferences of public transport users under uneven headways

Author

Listed:
  • Soza-Parra, Jaime
  • Raveau, Sebastián
  • Muñoz, Juan Carlos

Abstract

Public transport is affected by different types of randomness which impact the reliability they offer. The source of this randomness may come, for example, from casual uncertainty sources, such as accidents or protests, or from systematic uncertainty, related to service supply, such as dwelling time or travel time between consecutive stops. In addition to these sources of variability, an extra source of uncertainty experienced by users arises due to the public transport vehicle not being immediately available to avoid a wait of uncertain length. In a frequency-based system (without schedules), even under perfect regularity, users are not sure about the next vehicle's time of arrival. This article aims to find out the impact that reliability has on travellers’ public transport alternative choice. To do so, an experiment of stated preferences is carried out, where the design characteristics are four operational attributes: speed, frequency, headway regularity, and average demand. Every scenario is randomly generated, based on the operational characteristics of the specific scenario. This means the alternatives presented resemble real-life operation and they are different between respondents. A Hybrid Discrete Choice Model was estimated, which addresses preference heterogeneity by considering two latent attitudes: punctual behaviour and crowding aversion. Overall, results indicate that headway irregularity has a significant effect on travellers’ choices, both in terms of waiting time and passenger density. This confirms this attribute should not be ignored in any public transport model, especially when it comes to evaluate projects which improve the system’s reliability but not necessary its average level of service.

Suggested Citation

  • Soza-Parra, Jaime & Raveau, Sebastián & Muñoz, Juan Carlos, 2021. "Travel preferences of public transport users under uneven headways," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 61-75.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:transa:v:147:y:2021:i:c:p:61-75
    DOI: 10.1016/j.tra.2021.02.012
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096585642100046X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.tra.2021.02.012?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Carrion, Carlos & Levinson, David, 2012. "Value of travel time reliability: A review of current evidence," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 720-741.
    2. Small, Kenneth A, 1987. "A Discrete Choice Model for Ordered Alternatives," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(2), pages 409-424, March.
    3. Li, Hao & Gao, Kun & Tu, Huizhao, 2017. "Variations in mode-specific valuations of travel time reliability and in-vehicle crowding: Implications for demand estimation," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 250-263.
    4. Loomes, Graham & Sugden, Robert, 1982. "Regret Theory: An Alternative Theory of Rational Choice under Uncertainty," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 92(368), pages 805-824, December.
    5. Fosgerau, Mogens, 2009. "The marginal social cost of headway for a scheduled service," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 43(8-9), pages 813-820, September.
    6. Li, Zheng & Hensher, David A. & Rose, John M., 2010. "Willingness to pay for travel time reliability in passenger transport: A review and some new empirical evidence," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 384-403, May.
    7. Soza-Parra, Jaime & Raveau, Sebastián & Muñoz, Juan Carlos & Cats, Oded, 2019. "The underlying effect of public transport reliability on users’ satisfaction," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 83-93.
    8. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    9. Small, K. & Noland, R. & Koskenoja, P., 1995. "Socio-economic Attributes And Impacts Of Travel Reliability: A Stated Preference Approach," Institute of Transportation Studies, Research Reports, Working Papers, Proceedings qt82n2w53k, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Berkeley.
    10. Hjorth, Katrine & Börjesson, Maria & Engelson, Leonid & Fosgerau, Mogens, 2015. "Estimating exponential scheduling preferences," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 81(P1), pages 230-251.
    11. Hollander, Yaron, 2006. "Direct versus indirect models for the effects of unreliability," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 40(9), pages 699-711, November.
    12. Kouwenhoven, Marco & de Jong, Gerard C. & Koster, Paul & van den Berg, Vincent A.C. & Verhoef, Erik T. & Bates, John & Warffemius, Pim M.J., 2014. "New values of time and reliability in passenger transport in The Netherlands," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 37-49.
    13. Fosgerau, Mogens & Karlström, Anders, 2010. "The value of reliability," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 38-49, January.
    14. Devarasetty, Prem Chand & Burris, Mark & Douglass Shaw, W., 2012. "The value of travel time and reliability-evidence from a stated preference survey and actual usage," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 46(8), pages 1227-1240.
    15. David Hensher, 2001. "The valuation of commuter travel time savings for car drivers: evaluating alternative model specifications," Transportation, Springer, vol. 28(2), pages 101-118, May.
    16. LaRiviere, Jacob & Czajkowski, Mikołaj & Hanley, Nick & Aanesen, Margrethe & Falk-Petersen, Jannike & Tinch, Dugald, 2014. "The value of familiarity: Effects of knowledge and objective signals on willingness to pay for a public good," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 376-389.
    17. Allen, Jaime & Muñoz, Juan Carlos & Ortúzar, Juan de Dios, 2018. "Modelling service-specific and global transit satisfaction under travel and user heterogeneity," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 509-528.
    18. Benezech, Vincent & Coulombel, Nicolas, 2013. "The value of service reliability," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 1-15.
    19. LaRiviere, Jacob & Czajkowski, Mikolaj & Hanley, Nick & Aanesen, Margrethe & Falk-Peterson, Jannike & Tinch, Dugald, 2014. "Effects of Experience, Knowledge and Signals on Willingness to Pay for a Public Good," SIRE Discussion Papers 2014-008, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    20. Mark Wardman & Gerard Whelan, 2011. "Twenty Years of Rail Crowding Valuation Studies: Evidence and Lessons from British Experience," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(3), pages 379-398.
    21. Bates, John & Polak, John & Jones, Peter & Cook, Andrew, 0. "The valuation of reliability for personal travel," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(2-3), pages 191-229, April.
    22. W. Burke Jackson & James V. Jucker, 1982. "An Empirical Study of Travel Time Variability and Travel Choice Behavior," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 16(4), pages 460-475, November.
    23. Eran Ben-Elia & Erel Avineri, 2015. "Response to Travel Information: A Behavioural Review," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(3), pages 352-377, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zhaoqi Zang & Xiangdong Xu & Kai Qu & Ruiya Chen & Anthony Chen, 2022. "Travel time reliability in transportation networks: A review of methodological developments," Papers 2206.12696, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2022.
    2. Dixit, Vinayak V. & Harb, Rami C. & Martínez-Correa, Jimmy & Rutström, Elisabet E., 2015. "Measuring risk aversion to guide transportation policy: Contexts, incentives, and respondents," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 15-34.
    3. Carrion, Carlos & Levinson, David, 2012. "Value of travel time reliability: A review of current evidence," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 720-741.
    4. Abegaz, Dereje & Hjorth, Katrine & Rich, Jeppe, 2017. "Testing the slope model of scheduling preferences on stated preference data," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 409-436.
    5. Fu, Jianhua & Zhang, Yongqing, 2020. "Valuation of travel time reliability: Considering the traveler's adaptive expectation with an indifference band on daily trip duration," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 337-353.
    6. Xiao, Yu & Coulombel, Nicolas & Palma, André de, 2017. "The valuation of travel time reliability: does congestion matter?," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 113-141.
    7. de Jong, Gerard C. & Bliemer, Michiel C.J., 2015. "On including travel time reliability of road traffic in appraisal," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 80-95.
    8. Engelson, Leonid & Fosgerau, Mogens, 2016. "The cost of travel time variability: Three measures with properties," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 555-564.
    9. Xiao, Yu & Fukuda, Daisuke, 2015. "On the cost of misperceived travel time variability," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 96-112.
    10. Hjorth, Katrine & Börjesson, Maria & Engelson, Leonid & Fosgerau, Mogens, 2015. "Estimating exponential scheduling preferences," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 81(P1), pages 230-251.
    11. Beaud, Mickael & Blayac, Thierry & Stéphan, Maïté, 2016. "The impact of travel time variability and travelers’ risk attitudes on the values of time and reliability," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 93(PA), pages 207-224.
    12. Teppei Kato & Kenetsu Uchida & William H. K. Lam & Agachai Sumalee, 2021. "Estimation of the value of travel time and of travel time reliability for heterogeneous drivers in a road network," Transportation, Springer, vol. 48(4), pages 1639-1670, August.
    13. Paul Koster & Eric Pels & Erik Verhoef, 2016. "The User Costs of Air Travel Delay Variability," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(1), pages 120-131, February.
    14. Wijayaratna, Kasun P. & Dixit, Vinayak V., 2016. "Impact of information on risk attitudes: Implications on valuation of reliability and information," Journal of choice modelling, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 16-34.
    15. Benezech, Vincent & Coulombel, Nicolas, 2013. "The value of service reliability," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 1-15.
    16. Zheng Li & Alejandro Tirachini & David A. Hensher, 2012. "Embedding Risk Attitudes in a Scheduling Model: Application to the Study of Commuting Departure Time," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(2), pages 170-188, May.
    17. Li, Hao & Tu, Huizhao & Hensher, David A., 2016. "Integrating the mean–variance and scheduling approaches to allow for schedule delay and trip time variability under uncertainty," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 151-163.
    18. Mark Wardman & Richard Batley, 2014. "Travel time reliability: a review of late time valuations, elasticities and demand impacts in the passenger rail market in Great Britain," Transportation, Springer, vol. 41(5), pages 1041-1069, September.
    19. Alejandro Tirachini & David Hensher & Michiel Bliemer, 2014. "Accounting for travel time variability in the optimal pricing of cars and buses," Transportation, Springer, vol. 41(5), pages 947-971, September.
    20. Li, Baibing, 2019. "Measuring travel time reliability and risk: A nonparametric approach," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 152-171.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:transa:v:147:y:2021:i:c:p:61-75. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/547/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.