Effects of Trip Purpose on Transit Fare Elasticiy, Case Study of Isfahan

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 MSc. Student, Department of Transportation Engineering, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran

2 Assistant Professor, Department of Transportation Engineering, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran

Abstract

This paper explores the effects of trip purpose on price elasticity of bus mode. Data for the research was collected through passenger field survey in Isfahan, Iran. Due to the nature of the data, nonlinear regression and nonparametric statistics tools were used for analysis. It was found that the logarithmic function best explains the relationship between percentage of change in demand and percentage of change infare. This implies that increase in the fare has a diminishing return to scale on demand. Average values of elasticity were calculated as (-0.33) for educational trips, (-0.27) for shopping trips, (-0.26) for commuting trips, (-0.66) for leisure trips, (-0.26) for medical trips, (-0.35) for returning-to-home trips, and (-0.54) for other trips. Highest values were observed for leisure trips and lowest values for shopping and commuting trips. Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U test were employed to analyze the equity of elasticity values among trip purposes. Results show that differences are significant and therefore, trip purpose does have significant effect on the value of fare elasticity of transit demand.

Keywords


-Conover,  W. D. (1999) "Practical nonparametric statistical”, 3rd edition,  John Wiley & Sons, Inc. New York, pp. 428-433.
-Curtin, J. F. (1968) "Effect of Fares on Transit Riding." Highway Research Record, 213, pp. 8-18.
-Dargay, J. M. and Hanly, M. (1999). "Bus Fare Elasticities: Report to the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions", ESRC TSU, December.
-Evans Iv, J. and Pratt, R.  (2003) "TCRP Report 95: Traveler response to transportation system changes", Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, DC. 
-Goodwin, P. B. (1992) "A Review of new demand elasticities with special reference to short and long run effects of price charges", Journal of Transport Economics and Policy,Vol. 26, pp. 155–170.
-Hensher, D. A. and Li, Z. (2011) "Ridership drivers of bus rapid transit systems",  Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies.
-Linsalata, L. P. A. J. (1991) "Fare elasticity and its application to forecasting transit demand", American Public Transit Association. 
-Litman, T. (2015) "Transit price elasticities and cross-elasticities 
-Liu, Y. and Ferreira,  L. (2010). "Estimating the latent demand for rail transit: a case study in Perth, Western Australia" , In Cowled, Craig J.L. (Ed.) Proceedings of The First International Postgraduate Conference on Engineering, Designing and Developing the Built Environment for Sustainable Wellbeing, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, pp. 289-294.
-Mitrani, A., Kincaid, I., Edwards, D. and Hobbs, G. (2002) "London undeground and bus demand analysis 1970-2000’
-Nowak, W. P. and Savage, I. (2013) "The cross elasticity between gasoline prices and transit use: evidence from Chicago", Transport Policy,Vol 29, pp. 38-45.
-Oldfield, R. (1974) "Elasticities of demand for travel" , Transport and Road Research Laboratory Report SR11.
-Ortuzar, J. D. and Willumsen, L. G. (2011) "Modelling transport". John Wiley & Sons.
-Preston, J. and James,  T. (2000) "Analysis of demand for bus services",  Transport Studies Unit, University of Oxford.
-Sirikijpanichkul, A. and Winyoopadit, S.   (2013) "Price elasticity of demand and transit fare strategy: a case study of Bangkok mass transit system." Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Engineering, Project and Production Management  (EPPM 2013).
-Wang, Z. J., Li,  X. H. and Chen,  F. (2015) "Impact evaluation of a mass transit fare change on demand and revenue utilizing smart card data",  Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice,Vol. 77, pp. 213-224.
-Wardman, M. and Grant-Muller, S. (2011) "Price elasticities of travel demand in great britain: a meta-analysis" , Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting,  2011 Paper #11-3544.
-White, P. R. (1978) "Passenger response to service factors", in "Factors Affecting Public Transport Patronage" TRRL Report SR4 13.