1 / 16

Why will Some Individuals Pay for Travel Information when it can be Free?

Carolina Transportation Program. Louis Wolinetz Department of City and Regional Planning University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Asad J. Khattak Department of City and Regional Planning University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Youngbin Yim California PATH Program

patrick-leach
Download Presentation

Why will Some Individuals Pay for Travel Information when it can be Free?

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Carolina Transportation Program Louis Wolinetz Department of City and Regional Planning University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Asad J. Khattak Department of City and Regional Planning University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Youngbin Yim California PATH Program University of California at Berkeley Why will Some Individuals Pay for Travel Information when it can be Free? Analysis of a Bay Area Traveler Survey

  2. Carolina Transportation Program Objective • Goals of study • Present a framework for analysis • Determine WTP for hypothetical ATIS • Identify factors affecting WTP • Draw policy implications from analysis • TravInfo Bay Area ATIS • U.S. DOT funded field project • PATH is TravInfo evaluator

  3. Carolina Transportation Program Background • Travel information usually free of charge • Current service fairly limited • General aversion to paying for info • Major Gaps • Little focus on transit and non-commuters • Paucity of revealed preference data • Few attempts to discern reasons for WTP

  4. Carolina Transportation Program Theoretical Framework • Six types of variables affecting WTP • Uncertainty • Information awareness • Access to information • Information use • Situational and contextual factors • Socioeconomic factors

  5. Carolina Transportation Program Dataset Description • TravInfo Bay Area Broad Area Survey • Conducted by PATH program at U.C. Berkeley (1998) • 1000 random CATI interviews • Primary purpose is TravInfo evaluation • Four protocols • Stated preference WTP questions

  6. Carolina Transportation Program The ATIS in Question 1) Automatic notification of unexpected congestion on your usual route. 2) Estimated time of delay from unexpected congestion on your usual route. 3) Automatic alternate route planning around the congestion. 4) Estimated travel time on you usual route and on any planned alternate routes.

  7. Carolina Transportation Program Analysis Methodology • Identify questions theoretically affecting WTP • Bivariate analysis • Statistical models • Multinomial Logit model • OLS model

  8. Carolina Transportation Program Nesting Structure Non info seeker n = 342 Info seeker, no WTP n = 177 Info seeker, Willing to pay n = 481 Pay per call $0.25, $0.50, $0.75, $1 Pay per month $3, $5, $7

  9. Carolina Transportation Program Key Descriptive Findings • More WTP per call than monthly • Transit travelers demonstrate WTP • Commuting not a major factor • Distance a factor in payment preference • Gender differences in preferred payment • Young respondents have high WTP • Content highly important

  10. Carolina Transportation Program MNL Model • Dependent variable is a combination of RP & SP • Independent variables: selected to include each of the six WTP factors discussed above • Potential Biases: • Policy response bias: Loss of free service • Non-commitment bias: Overstate WTP • Cognitive dissonance: Inability to grasp worth of free service • Skip patterns and missing data

  11. Carolina Transportation Program MNL Results Seek Info and Pay

  12. Carolina Transportation Program MNL Results Seek Info, but No Pay

  13. Carolina Transportation Program OLS Model • Estimated to determine value of ATIS • Includes only information seekers WTP r2 = .151

  14. Carolina Transportation Program Conclusions • Information seekers generally WTP, and prefer paying per-call • Transit users more likely to seek info and to pay than expected • Younger respondents and men more likely to pay • Congestion, trip distance, and employment status are key factors • Info content and frequency of use important in amount WTP

  15. Carolina Transportation Program Policy Implications • Potential for ATIS funded by user fees • There is a demand for ATIS • Congestion and mode are both factors in WTP • Customizing and targeting information important • Extrapolating from data yields significant $$$ • Investigate fee for information demonstration project • Although users prefer pay-per-call, monthly fees may be a better choice for demonstration projects

  16. Carolina Transportation Program Future Steps • Tobit model rather than OLS to include all respondents • Spatial analysis: Use GIS to look at ways infrastructure and contextual factors and relate to WTP • Rigorous benefit/cost analysis

More Related