South Eastern Busway Network in Brisbane, Australia: Value of the Network Effect

Abstract

This paper identifies how much was added to residential land values through the provision of bus rapid transit (BRT) service in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, with regard to increases in land values because of the BRT system itself and the value of the network effect as a result of incremental additions to the transport infrastructure, a much more common feature of Australian cities. Difference-in-differences models were employed to explore whether there were significant differences between the treatment group (properties close to busway stations) and the control group (properties not close to busway stations) with regard to housing price changes (first difference) before and after the opening of busway stations (second difference). Two types of control groups were defined by using conventional buffer methods and propensity score matching. Model results show increases in property prices because of better accessibility to busways themselves, on the one hand, and on the other hand, additions to the value of land through the network effect of access to a greater service area as the BRT network is developed. The paper reports how different methods of identifying control areas to match given treatment areas had different results and discusses the implications of these results for a literature that has a variety of methods established for research.