Metro Fare Research Articles

Commuters’ willingness-to-pay for improvement of transfer facilities in and around metro stations – A case study in Kolkata

Although several cities in India are developing the metro system, there are lacunas associated with transfer facilities in and around metro stations. The present work aims to investigate the perception of commuters of Kolkata city, India in terms of their willingness-to-pay (WTP) for improvement of transfer facilities. A stated preference survey instrument was designed to collect choice responses from metro commuters and the database was analysed by developing random parameter logit (RPL) models. The decomposition effects of various socioeconomic and trip characteristics on mean estimates were also investigated in random parameter logit models with heterogeneity. The work indicates significantly high WTP of metro commuters as compared to the average metro fare for improvement of various qualitative attributes of transfer facility such as ‘facility for level change’, ‘visual communication’, ‘pedestrian crossing’, and ‘pedestrian environment’. The WTP values are also found to vary across different groups of commuter formed on the basis of ‘trip purpose’, ‘monthly household income’, ‘station type’ and ‘metro fare’. ‘Work trip’ commuters are found to have higher WTP for improvement of access time, pedestrian environment and use of an escalator over the elevator. On the other hand, ‘high-income group’ commuters have shown higher WTP for improvement of access time, pedestrian crossing, and pedestrian environment. While ‘high fare group’ commuters have higher WTP for access time and pedestrian environment, heterogeneity is also observed in WTP for facility for level change, pedestrian crossing, and pedestrian environment across commuters using different ‘station type’ (underground, at-grade, and elevated). The findings from the study provide a basis for formulating policies for the improvement of transfer facilities in and around metro stations giving due attention to the preference of commuters having different socioeconomic and trip characteristics.

Shifting from Metro to Sustainable Surface Modes for Short-Distance Travel

Many cities with metro systems are experiencing overcapacity problems on some or many lines. Beijing is one such city whose metro also services a high proportion of short-distance trips. The proportion of short-distance travel—less than 5 km (3.1 mi)—carried out on foot or on bicycle varies greatly across cities, depending on alternative travel modes and local environmental conditions. In this study, users of a multimodal transportation corridor that included metro ( n = 400) were interviewed about their travel mode preferences depending on distance within the short-distance travel category. Users were also asked to state their preferences for mode, depending on distance and a progressive rise in metro ticket fare. Finally, users were asked to state their mode preferences for trips that extended to five metro stations if a public bicycle system with a separate lane were made available. Modal choice was highly sensitive to variable short-distance trips. A progressive shift to bus use occurred as the metro fare price increased, with little change in the walking rate or in the use of motorized modes. When the original low metro fare price was maintained, the availability of a public bicycle system led to a sevenfold increase in bicycle use, with significant drops in bus share, and to a lesser extent, metro share. Responses to the stated preference survey indicated that fares and a public bicycle program might be effective to manage the use of metro for short-distance trips.

Fare Design in Urban Transit Network considering Elastic Demand and Adverse Weather’s Impact

Due to the disturbance of unexpected effects and adverse weather conditions, transit supply and demand manifests many uncertainties. In this paper, we take account of these uncertainties and propose a transit fare structure design model including both ground and underground public transportation. Such transit fare design problem is described through bilevel programming, in which the upper level is the transportation authority’s transit fare structure decision aiming to minimize the transit network’s total travel and operation cost, while the lower level is a transit network assignment model considering supply and demand uncertainties that influence passengers’ travel choice decisions. A heuristic algorithm is developed to solve the problem, and a numerical example is presented to illustrate the application. We get some important results: (1) a diversified fare structure considering uncertain weather’s impact is quite necessary; (2) when the value of time is at a high level, metro fare should be higher than bus fare; (3) the optimal metro and bus fare should be close under an extremely adverse weather condition; (4) fare structure could be quite different with varied value of time.

광역철도 승차권제도 개선 및 효과에 관한 연구

현재 운영 중인 광역철도 승차권은 교통카드와 정기권 등으로 매우 제한되어 있어, 소비자 선택에 한계가 있으며, 소비자 수요의 다양성을 고려한 승차권 제도 도입이 필요한 실정이다. 이에 외국 주요도시에서 사용 중인 다양한 승차권 제도 운영을 분석하여 우리나라 수도권 광역철도 승차권 제도가 보다 효율적으로 운영되는 방안을 제시하였다. 주요내용으로는 대중교통 이용 촉진 및 비용부담 감소, 수익증대의 효과로 이어질 수 있도록 하여 외국에서 일반화되어 있는 1일권 승차권, 승용차 출퇴근자의 승객과 승차인원 증대를 위한 출퇴근권 및 경춘선 등에 서비스가 공급대비 수요가 부족한 경우에 한해 왕복 여행객에 대한 특별할인 왕복승차권 제도 도입을 제안하였다. Current metro tickets are categorized into transportation cards and monthly season tickets, which offer limited consumer choices. A metro fare system should be introduced based on the diversity of customer demand. Thus, this study's objective is that the metro fare system in Korea should be efficiently operated by analyzing a variety of metro fare systems used in major cities of other countries. In addition, this study proposed the following metro fare systems, one day pass, which is generally used in other countries in a bid to promote public transportation, reduce costs, and increase revenue. A commuting ticket system to increase the demand from cars to subways, and special discounts & a round-trip ticket system for round-trip travelers in case that demand is low was compared with the high supply on the Gyeongchun-line.

Reflections on The Free Fare Movement and Other "New Social Movements"

On June 6, 2013, the Free Fare Movement (Movimento Passe Livre) began a very aggressive campaign against the rise in bus and metro fares in São Paulo, Brazil. In an ultimately two-week campaign, the movement organized six demonstrations blocking some of São Paulo's most vital avenues. After the demonstrations became massive (some in excess of one million people), both city and state governments relented and reduced the fares. The June mobilizations were horizontal, non-partisan, and based on direct action. These events are akin to other recent mobilizations such as Occupy Wall Street and the 15M movement in Spain but are different in one important aspect: they had only one demand—a 20-cent reduction in bus and metro fares. This one demand allowed the movement to develop a clear and successful strategy while retaining the horizontality and countercultural creativity of other new movements. Indeed, this series of demonstrations may have provided a model for coordinating a concern for processes with strategically aiming for outcomes.

Reliability analysis of stochastic park-and-ride network

Park-and-ride (P&R) facilities can alleviate the traffic burden in central urban areas by enabling car drivers to park at the perimeter of congested areas and continue their journeys with public transportation (e.g., metro and bus rapid transit). Whether a P&R scheme is successful depends on its attractiveness to car users. This paper presents an evaluation method for the reliability analysis of P&R mode. Two indices, P&R reliability and mode reliability, are introduced to represent the reliabilities of a transfer point and an entire trip, respectively. Then, a systematic reliability analysis is conducted for a stochastic P&R network, where travelers can complete their journeys via two options: auto mode or P&R mode. A variational inequality (VI) model is proposed and solved by a heuristic solution algorithm. Numerical results show that the P&R facility reliability is significantly influenced by the capacity of parking facilities, the dispatching frequency of the connecting metro, and the metro fare. In addition, a higher level of total demand in the network has significant negative impacts on P&R mode’s attractiveness compared to auto mode.

The Role of Metro Fares, Income, Metro Quality of Service and Fuel Prices for Sustainable Transportation in Mexico City

ABSTRACT This paper uses time series and panel cointegration techniques to estimate the effect that fares, income, quality of service and fuel prices have on the demand for the Mexico City metro. Fares and fuel prices are not cointegrated with patronage, income or quality of service. We estimate zero own and cross price elasticities of demand suggesting either that fares are too low relative to incomes or that the vast majority of users are metro-dependent. The results also show that income elasticities are negative and close to unity in the long run while service elasticities have a positive but less than proportional effect on demand. This suggests that, in the interest of promoting sustainable mobility, quality of service will need to improve at higher rates than income.

An analysis of gasoline demand elasticities at the national and local levels in Mexico

The majority of evidence on gasoline demand elasticities is derived from models based on national data. Since the largest growth in population is now taking place in cities in the developing world it is important that we understand whether this national evidence is applicable to demand conditions at the local level. The aim of this paper is to estimate and compare gasoline per vehicle demand elasticities at the national and local levels in Mexico. National elasticities with respect to price, income, vehicle stock and metro fares are estimated using both a time series cointegration model and a panel GMM model for Mexican states. Estimates for Mexico City are derived by modifying national estimates according to mode shares as suggested by Graham and Glaister (2006), and by estimating a panel Within Groups model with data aggregated by borough. Although all models agree on the sign of the elasticities the magnitudes differ greatly. Elasticities change over time and differ between the national and local levels, with smaller price responses in Mexico City. In general, price elasticities are smaller than those reported in the gasoline demand surveys, a pattern previously found in developing countries. The fact that income and vehicle stock elasticities increase over time may suggest that vehicles are being used more intensively in recent years and that Mexico City residents are purchasing larger vehicles. Elasticities with respect to metro fares are negligible, which suggests little substitution between modes. Finally, the fact that fuel efficiency elasticities are smaller than vehicle stock elasticities suggests that vehicle stock size, rather than its composition, has a larger impact on gasoline consumption in Mexico City.

Estimation of Road Traffic Demand Elasticities for Mexico City, Mexico

A study was done to estimate price, income, vehicle stock, metro fares, and fuel-efficiency elasticities of the demand for road traffic in Mexico City, Mexico. Dynamic panel generalized method of moments (GMM) models are estimated with annual data from the 16 Mexico City boroughs for 2000 to 2004. The results show that the available instruments in both the difference and system GMM specifications are weak and the estimator is biased. The elasticities are therefore estimated with a static within-groups approach. The estimated medium-run traffic elasticity for fuel prices is -0.117, much smaller than the average estimates reported in the literature, a pattern also found for fuel-demand elasticities in Mexico City. These results suggest that a road user charge equivalent to 10% of the price of fuel would reduce traffic by only about 1.2% but would be effective in increasing government revenue. The results also show that road traffic grows in line with economic development, as the combined effect of income and vehicle stock is close to unity. Traffic elasticities for metro fares are negligible, which suggests little substitution between transport modes. Finally, the positive fuel-efficiency elasticity shows that as vehicles become more fuel efficient, road traffic increases, although less than proportionally.