Estimation of value-of-time and a comparison of an ex ante and an ex post willingness to pay for shared transport services in Thessaloniki

Abstract

Although the value-of-time and willingness-to-pay are critical measures in a broad range of public transport policy and planning applications, they cannot be measured directly. The purpose of the present research is the estimation of these measures in Thessaloniki, where a pilot mobility scheme inspired by the concept of sharing economy is implemented. The pilot focuses on reducing the commuting trips to the city centre, aggregating as much as possible the origins-destinations and the timetables, by using a taxi sharing service. A questionnaire including a stated-preference experiment has been developed and delivered to a random sample of 90 people. Discrete choice models are developed within a methodological framework and VOT has been estimated through the estimated coefficients. For the estimation of WTP, the Price Sensitivity Model is used based on two samples consisted of the pilot service's users at the beginning and at the end of the pilot period. The model results in a range of acceptable prices from 2.00 to 3.50€ for the both samples supporting the long-term sustainability of the taxi-sharing service.