Establishing A Fare Elasticity Regime for Urban Passenger Transport: Non- Concession Commuters

Abstract

The missing ingredient in many operational studies of public transport patronage prediction is a matrix of direct and cross fare elasticities which relate to specific fare classes within a choice set of fare class opportunities. This paper uses a heteroskedastic extreme value choice model to relax the constant variance assumption of the multinomial logit model so that empirically realistic cross elasticities can be obtained. A combined stated preference and revealed preference data set collected in Sydney in 1995 is used to obtain a matrix of direct and cross elasticities which reflects the market environment in which commuters make choices while benefiting by a richer understanding of how travellers respond to fare profiles not always observed in real markets, but including fare profiles which are of interest as potential alternatives to the current market offerings.