Analyzing the Difference between the Stated Preference and the Revealed Preference before/after the High-speed Rail Service in Korea

Abstract

The Korean high-speed rail (HSR) began its commercial service in 2004. This service has been created significant changes in the system of intercity passenger travels of Korea. However, the actual ridership was approximately half of the estimated one in the planning stage. In this background, this paper presents the difference between the stated preference (SP) before the HSR service and the revealed preference (RP) after it using the intercity travel mode choice models. Several meaningful differences are found in terms of the factors affecting the travel mode choice, the estimation results of model, the monetary values of time, and elasticities. While the access/egress travel time of high-speed rail is less important than in-vehicle travel time in the SP sample, they have same weight in the RP sample. Also the RP models show that the probability of choosing HSR can be decreased by the increase of the number of vehicles in household contrary to the results from the SP models. The monetary values of travel time are relatively high and the direct and cross elasticities in response to changes in level-of-service of HSR are relatively low in the RP sample. This Korean case is expected to offer referable material for preparing high-speed rail services in other countries by showing the difference between the SP and RP before/after the actual service, identifying the importance of access/egress travel time and lower direct elasticities of HSR demand.