How do travellers respond to health and environmental policies to reduce air pollution?

Despite the various measures taken to reduce air pollution in France, the French continue to use high emitting vehicles. We propose to evaluate the traveller's willingness to pay (WTP) for four means of transport: two high emitting vehicles (taxi diesel and personal diesel car) and two low-emission vehicles (rented electric vehicle and public transport). We get that individuals prefer personal cars. We propose different health and environmental policies to encourage people to adopt low-emission vehicles. Successive messages revealing the effects of air pollution on health and the environment are provided to individuals in a different order. We find that the information and order of information affect the WTP of individuals. This information campaign increases demand for low-emission vehicles, but demand for high emitting vehicles is somewhat affected. Indeed, individuals prefer to ignore information, they behave as in the theory of the tragedy of the commons. We then propose a system of tax subsidies and a standard subsidy system. These two policies drive individuals to switch from high emitting vehicles to low-emission vehicles. The regulator will have to choose between an incentive intervention (with a system of tax subsidies) and a coercive intervention (with a standard subsidy system).