Valuing Urban Bus Attributes

The article presents the marginal willingness-to-pay (WTP) estimates for various qualitative and quantitative attributes of travel with reference to the bus transportation system in Kolkata City, India. A stated choice experiment is designed to capture the responses for estimating marginal WTP values for various attributes. WTP values are estimated separately for commuting and noncommuting trips. The effects of model specification and socioeconomic parameters on WTP values are also studied. Estimates from standard multinomial logit (MNL) and different random parameter logit (RPL) models indicate that WTP values vary with model specification. In the process of developing RPL models, successful application of sparsely used constrained triangular distribution is also demonstrated. Introduction Travel needs in developing countries are largely served by public transportation systems, especially bus transportation systems. In the recent years, bus fares have risen at regular intervals due to frequent increases in the price of petroleum fuels all over the world. However, poor quality of travel in bus transportation systems continues, with a resulting declining trend in bus patronage. Policy-makers and practitioners are constantly in search of solutions for improving bus patronage, especially in urban areas of developing countries. It is essential to improve the bus patronage in urban areas, not only for minimizing the usage of private vehicles and resulting road congestion, but also to safeguard Journal of Public Transportation, Vol. 9, No. 2, 2006 70 the environment for greater community benefit. Any improvement is expected to bring some benefits to the users, and estimation of user benefits is an essential input for evaluating any improvement plan. The literature shows evidence of estimation of user benefits in the form of willingness-to-pay (WTP) values in the context of transport and nontransport improvements (Hensher 1994; Jose Holguin-Veras 2002; Hensher and Greene 2001; Hensher 2001; Hensher and Sullivan 2003; Adamowicz, Louviere, and Williams 1994; Carlsson et al. 2003; Onyango, Govindasamy, and Nayga 2004). However, most of the studies are carried out in developed countries with limited information available about WTP values in developing countries like India. In the present study, an attempt is made to estimate WTP values associated with various qualitative and quantitative attributes of bus transportation system with reference to Kolkata City in India. The travel demand in Kolkata City is largely served by more than 5,000 buses. Longer travel times, poor levels of comfort inside buses (based on crowding), poor appearance of buses (both internal and external), and high noise levels are common features of the bus transportation system in Kolkata. Therefore, all these attributes along with travel cost are considered for the estimation of WTP values. WTP estimates vary depending on the approach and/or model specification adopted. Users’ willingness to pay also depends on the trip purpose. In addition, WTP values may also be influenced by one or more sociodemographic parameters such as age, income, household size, etc. The objective of this research is to estimate users’ WTP values associated with various attributes of bus transport, and study the variation with different model specifications and trip purposes. Trips are classified as commuting (work and business) and noncommuting (recreation and social), and separate models are developed for estimating WTP values. The effect of socioeconomic characteristics on the mean of random parameter (“mean heterogeneity”) is also investigated.