IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/transb/v81y2015ip1p289-301.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Commuters’ preferences for fast and reliable travel: A semi-parametric estimation approach

Author

Listed:
  • Koster, Paul R.
  • Koster, Hans R.A.

Abstract

We employ a semi-parametric estimation approach to analyse observed and unobserved heterogeneity in the value of savings in travel time and schedule delay. Our econometric approach allows for the estimation of unobserved and observed heterogeneity in preferences in a flexible way, meaning that we do not put any structure on how individual characteristics (such as income and age) relate to the value of savings in travel time and schedule delay. Using data from a stated choice experiment, we illustrate the estimation approach and find that there is substantial heterogeneity in the value of savings in travel time and schedule delay. For our data, we find that unobserved heterogeneity is more important than heterogeneity related to individual characteristics.

Suggested Citation

  • Koster, Paul R. & Koster, Hans R.A., 2015. "Commuters’ preferences for fast and reliable travel: A semi-parametric estimation approach," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 81(P1), pages 289-301.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:transb:v:81:y:2015:i:p1:p:289-301
    DOI: 10.1016/j.trb.2015.05.011
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191261515001137
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.trb.2015.05.011?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mills, David E, 1981. "Ownership Arrangements and Congestion-Prone Facilities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(3), pages 493-502, June.
    2. Lam, Terence C. & Small, Kenneth A., 0. "The value of time and reliability: measurement from a value pricing experiment," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(2-3), pages 231-251, April.
    3. Weihua Guan, 2003. "From the help desk: Bootstrapped standard errors," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 3(1), pages 71-80, March.
    4. Peter Hall & Qi Li & Jeffrey S. Racine, 2007. "Nonparametric Estimation of Regression Functions in the Presence of Irrelevant Regressors," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(4), pages 784-789, November.
    5. Tan, Zhijia & Yang, Hai, 2012. "The impact of user heterogeneity on road franchising," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(5), pages 958-975.
    6. Gilles Duranton & Henry G. Overman, 2005. "Testing for Localization Using Micro-Geographic Data," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(4), pages 1077-1106.
    7. Gilles Celeux & Gilda Soromenho, 1996. "An entropy criterion for assessing the number of clusters in a mixture model," Journal of Classification, Springer;The Classification Society, vol. 13(2), pages 195-212, September.
    8. Racine, Jeff & Li, Qi, 2004. "Nonparametric estimation of regression functions with both categorical and continuous data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 119(1), pages 99-130, March.
    9. Huang, Hai-Jun, 2000. "Fares and tolls in a competitive system with transit and highway: the case with two groups of commuters," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 267-284, December.
    10. Fosgerau, Mogens, 2007. "Using nonparametrics to specify a model to measure the value of travel time," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 41(9), pages 842-856, November.
    11. Li, Zheng & Hensher, David A. & Rose, John M., 2010. "Willingness to pay for travel time reliability in passenger transport: A review and some new empirical evidence," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 384-403, May.
    12. Patrick Bajari & Matthew E. Kahn, 2005. "Estimating Housing Demand With an Application to Explaining Racial Segregation in Cities," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 23, pages 20-33, January.
    13. Brownstone, David & Small, Kenneth A., 2005. "Valuing time and reliability: assessing the evidence from road pricing demonstrations," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 279-293, May.
    14. Small, Kenneth A., 2001. "The Value of Pricing," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt0rm449sx, University of California Transportation Center.
    15. Thijs Dekker & Paul Koster & Roy Brouwer, 2014. "Changing with the Tide: Semiparametric Estimation of Preference Dynamics," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 90(4), pages 717-745.
    16. Börjesson, Maria & Fosgerau, Mogens & Algers, Staffan, 2012. "Catching the tail: Empirical identification of the distribution of the value of travel time," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 378-391.
    17. Greene, William H. & Hensher, David A., 2003. "A latent class model for discrete choice analysis: contrasts with mixed logit," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 681-698, September.
    18. Vickrey, William S, 1969. "Congestion Theory and Transport Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 59(2), pages 251-260, May.
    19. Hathaway, Richard J., 1986. "Another interpretation of the EM algorithm for mixture distributions," Statistics & Probability Letters, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 53-56, March.
    20. Hjorth, Katrine & Fosgerau, Mogens, 2012. "Using prospect theory to investigate the low marginal value of travel time for small time changes," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 46(8), pages 917-932.
    21. Peer, Stefanie & Knockaert, Jasper & Koster, Paul & Verhoef, Erik T., 2014. "Over-reporting vs. overreacting: Commuters’ perceptions of travel times," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 476-494.
    22. van den Berg, Vincent & Verhoef, Erik T., 2011. "Congestion tolling in the bottleneck model with heterogeneous values of time," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 60-78, January.
    23. Daniel P. McMillen & Christian L. Redfearn, 2010. "Estimation And Hypothesis Testing For Nonparametric Hedonic House Price Functions," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(3), pages 712-733, August.
    24. Schwanen, Tim & Ettema, Dick, 2009. "Coping with unreliable transportation when collecting children: Examining parents' behavior with cumulative prospect theory," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 43(5), pages 511-525, June.
    25. Winston, Clifford & Yan, Jia, 2011. "Can privatization of U.S. highways improve motorists' welfare?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7-8), pages 993-1005, August.
    26. J. Fan & M. Farmen & I. Gijbels, 1998. "Local maximum likelihood estimation and inference," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 60(3), pages 591-608.
    27. Unknown, 1986. "Letters," Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 1(4), pages 1-9.
    28. Arnott, Richard & de Palma, Andre & Lindsey, Robin, 1992. "Route choice with heterogeneous drivers and group-specific congestion costs," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 71-102, March.
    29. van den Berg, Vincent & Verhoef, Erik T., 2011. "Winning or losing from dynamic bottleneck congestion pricing?: The distributional effects of road pricing with heterogeneity in values of time and schedule delay," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7-8), pages 983-992, August.
    30. Amil Petrin, 2002. "Quantifying the Benefits of New Products: The Case of the Minivan," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(4), pages 705-729, August.
    31. David Hensher, 2001. "The valuation of commuter travel time savings for car drivers: evaluating alternative model specifications," Transportation, Springer, vol. 28(2), pages 101-118, May.
    32. Abrantes, Pedro A.L. & Wardman, Mark R., 2011. "Meta-analysis of UK values of travel time: An update," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 1-17, January.
    33. van den Berg, Vincent & Verhoef, Erik T., 2011. "Winning or losing from dynamic bottleneck congestion pricing?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7), pages 983-992.
    34. Berry, Steven & Levinsohn, James & Pakes, Ariel, 1995. "Automobile Prices in Market Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(4), pages 841-890, July.
    35. Börjesson, Maria & Kristoffersson, Ida, 2014. "Assessing the welfare effects of congestion charges in a real world setting," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 339-355.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Beaud, Mickael & Blayac, Thierry & Stéphan, Maïté, 2016. "The impact of travel time variability and travelers’ risk attitudes on the values of time and reliability," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 93(PA), pages 207-224.
    2. Li, Zheng & Hensher, David A. & Rose, John M., 2010. "Willingness to pay for travel time reliability in passenger transport: A review and some new empirical evidence," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 384-403, May.
    3. Gaigné, Carl & Koster, Hans R.A. & Moizeau, Fabien & Thisse, Jacques-François, 2022. "Who lives where in the city? Amenities, commuting and income sorting," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    4. Stef Proost & Jacques-François Thisse, 2019. "What Can Be Learned from Spatial Economics?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 57(3), pages 575-643, September.
    5. Ye, Xin & Garikapati, Venu M. & You, Daehyun & Pendyala, Ram M., 2017. "A practical method to test the validity of the standard Gumbel distribution in logit-based multinomial choice models of travel behavior," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 173-192.
    6. Pudāne, Baiba, 2019. "Departure Time Choice and Bottleneck Congestion with Automated Vehicles: Role of On-board Activities," MPRA Paper 96328, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Schmid, Basil & Molloy, Joseph & Peer, Stefanie & Jokubauskaite, Simona & Aschauer, Florian & Hössinger, Reinhard & Gerike, Regine & Jara-Diaz, Sergio R. & Axhausen, Kay W., 2021. "The value of travel time savings and the value of leisure in Zurich: Estimation, decomposition and policy implications," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 186-215.
    8. Gokan,Toshitaka & Kichko,Sergei & Matheson,Jesse A & Thisse,Jacques-François, 2022. "How the rise of teleworking will reshape labor markets and cities?," IDE Discussion Papers 868, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO).
    9. Behrens, Kristian & Kichko, Sergei & Thisse, Jacques-Francois, 2024. "Working from home: Too much of a good thing?," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    10. Carl Gaigné & Hans R.A. Koster & Fabien Moizeau & Jacques-François Thisse, 2017. "Amenities and the Social Structure of Cities," Economics Working Paper Archive (University of Rennes & University of Caen) 2017-07, Center for Research in Economics and Management (CREM), University of Rennes, University of Caen and CNRS.
    11. Wiktor Budziński & Danny Campbell & Mikołaj Czajkowski & Urška Demšar & Nick Hanley, 2018. "Using Geographically Weighted Choice Models to Account for the Spatial Heterogeneity of Preferences," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 69(3), pages 606-626, September.
    12. Wiktor Budziński & Mikołaj Czajkowski, 2018. "A Monte Carlo investigation of the effects of spatial heterogeneity of preferences for discrete choice models," Working Papers 2018-24, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    13. Wiktor Budziński & Mikołaj Czajkowski, 2021. "Accounting for Spatial Heterogeneity of Preferences in Discrete Choice Models," Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, vol. 13(1), pages 1-24, March.
    14. Sander Cranenburgh & Marco Kouwenhoven, 2021. "An artificial neural network based method to uncover the value-of-travel-time distribution," Transportation, Springer, vol. 48(5), pages 2545-2583, October.
    15. Steijn, Mathieu P.A. & Koster, Hans R.A. & Van Oort, Frank G., 2022. "The dynamics of industry agglomeration: Evidence from 44 years of coagglomeration patterns," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Paul Koster & Hans Koster, 2013. "Commuters' Preferences for Fast and Reliable Travel," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 13-075/VIII, Tinbergen Institute, revised 30 Apr 2015.
    2. Paul Koster & Hans Koster, 2013. "Analysing Heterogeneity in the Value of Travel Time and Reliability: A Semiparametric Estimation Approach," ERSA conference papers ersa13p1032, European Regional Science Association.
    3. Liu, Yang & Nie, Yu (Marco) & Hall, Jonathan, 2015. "A semi-analytical approach for solving the bottleneck model with general user heterogeneity," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 56-70.
    4. Li, Zhi-Chun & Huang, Hai-Jun & Yang, Hai, 2020. "Fifty years of the bottleneck model: A bibliometric review and future research directions," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 311-342.
    5. Carrion, Carlos & Levinson, David, 2012. "Value of travel time reliability: A review of current evidence," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 720-741.
    6. Kenneth Small, 2015. "The Bottleneck Model: An Assessment and Interpretation," Working Papers 141506, University of California-Irvine, Department of Economics.
    7. Stefanie Peer & Erik Verhoef & Jasper Knockaert & Paul Koster & Yin‐Yen Tseng, 2015. "Long‐Run Versus Short‐Run Perspectives On Consumer Scheduling: Evidence From A Revealed‐Preference Experiment Among Peak‐Hour Road Commuters," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56(1), pages 303-323, February.
    8. Button, Kenneth, 2004. "1. The Rationale For Road Pricing: Standard Theory And Latest Advances," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 3-25, January.
    9. Small, Kenneth A., 2015. "The bottleneck model: An assessment and interpretation," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 4(1), pages 110-117.
    10. Peer, Stefanie & Knockaert, Jasper & Koster, Paul & Tseng, Yin-Yen & Verhoef, Erik T., 2013. "Door-to-door travel times in RP departure time choice models: An approximation method using GPS data," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 134-150.
    11. Fu, Xinying & van den Berg, Vincent A.C. & Verhoef, Erik T., 2018. "Private road supply in networks with heterogeneous users," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 430-443.
    12. Small, Kenneth A., 2012. "Valuation of travel time," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 2-14.
    13. Chen, Hongyu & Nie, Yu (Marco) & Yin, Yafeng, 2015. "Optimal multi-step toll design under general user heterogeneity," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 81(P3), pages 775-793.
    14. Yang Liu & Yu (Marco) Nie, 2017. "A Credit-Based Congestion Management Scheme in General Two-Mode Networks with Multiclass Users," Networks and Spatial Economics, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 681-711, September.
    15. Wiktor Budziński & Danny Campbell & Mikołaj Czajkowski & Urška Demšar & Nick Hanley, 2018. "Using Geographically Weighted Choice Models to Account for the Spatial Heterogeneity of Preferences," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 69(3), pages 606-626, September.
    16. Stephane Hess & Andrew Daly & Maria Börjesson, 2020. "A critical appraisal of the use of simple time-money trade-offs for appraisal value of travel time measures," Transportation, Springer, vol. 47(3), pages 1541-1570, June.
    17. Börjesson, Maria & Eliasson, Jonas, 2014. "Experiences from the Swedish Value of Time study," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 144-158.
    18. Chen, Hongyu & Liu, Yang & Nie, Yu (Marco), 2015. "Solving the step-tolled bottleneck model with general user heterogeneity," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 81(P1), pages 210-229.
    19. Takayama, Yuki, 2020. "Who gains and who loses from congestion pricing in a monocentric city with a bottleneck?," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 24(C).
    20. Vincent van den Berg & Erik T. Verhoef, 2011. "Congesting Pricing in a Road and Rail Network with Heterogeneous Values of Time and Schedule Delay," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 11-059/3, Tinbergen Institute, revised 24 May 2012.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:transb:v:81:y:2015:i:p1:p:289-301. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/548/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.