Systematic assessment of push and pull initiatives in behavioural responses associated with public transport fares, service frequency, car-related tolls, distance-based road user charges, and parking charges

Abstract

There has been a constant flow of empirical evidence suggesting the likely modal trip impact that stand-alone policy initiatives such as public transport fares or service frequency and road pricing reforms (be it tolls or distance-based charging) have on the change in travel behaviour. While the evidence, typically converted to mean direct elasticity and cross elasticity modal estimates, is informative, there is a dearth of empirical evidence on elasticities associated with policy initiatives that combine policies such as a public transport fare or service frequency change and a car-related toll and /or distance-based charge and/or parking charges. This paper investigates the one-way trip and arc elasticity impacts of stand-alone policy initiatives and compares the two elasticity effects when push and pull policy initiatives are at play. We find not only that there are asymmetric effects according to whether the policy involves an increase or a decrease, but that the combined policy initiatives suggest very different mean arc elasticity impacts, opening up opportunities for behavioural changes that are not obtained to the same extent from a stand-alone policy initiative. Each policy by itself generally, although not always, has a lower relative elasticity compared to when it is combined with another policy. We use the advanced Metroscan integrated transport and land use strategic model system to obtain the evidence for 2024 in the Sydney Metropolitan Area.