Valuation of man-made incident risk perception in public transport: The case of the Athens metro

Abstract

This paper models and investigates risk and security perception of metro travelers, in cases of malevolent, man-made incidents. Data is collected through an extensive survey in Athens, Greece; the survey includes an image-based stated-preference experiment, depicting different risk and security conditions. Econometric models are developed for estimating willingness to pay for mitigating perceived risk and for improving security in the Athens metro system. Results highlight the value that travelers attribute to improving security and avoiding threatening conditions in the Athens metro system, which is estimated to a 25%–30% of the system’s fare level. The paper provides useful insights on acceptable fare changes for improving security and risk perception in the Athens metro system.