Public transport users' willingness-to-pay for a multi-county and multi-operator integrated ticket: Valuation and policy implications

Abstract

Willingness-to-pay (WTP) is an institutionally accepted approach for deriving the monetary values of transport policy measures in many countries. Public transport (PT) service providers around the world are implementing integrated ticketing schemes to improve synergy and to remove or reduce the barriers to travelling across operators that are created by multimodal and deregulated public transport markets. Yet, users' preferences and WTP for integrated ticketing systems is mostly unexplored, leaving policymakers with little means of evaluating their potential economic benefits. Consequently, this case study was conducted to estimate PT users' WTP for multi-county and multi-operator integrated ticketing. Multinomial and mixed multinomial logit models were estimated using stated preference (SP) data, collected in relation to the Movingo multi-county and multi-operator integrated season ticket scheme in Mälardalen, Sweden. The findings showed strong evidence of users WTP for regional ticketing integration. Users' valuation of the integration is estimated to be at least 26% of the average integrated monthly ticket price. The mean WTP of non-commuting PT users' is estimated to be 42% higher than that of PT commuters. Women PT users showed less variability in their WTP compared to men. Still, the mean WTP of men is about twice as high as that of women. A higher proportion of men are willing to pay over 50% of the average integrated season ticket price to get the benefits of an intercounty integrated ticketing system. The resulting range of WTP values could be used in cost-benefit-analysis to infer policy conclusions about the value of integrated ticketing for users and society.