Value of Crowding on Public Transport in île-de-France, France

Abstract

This paper describes the results of a research project that aimed to establish passenger values of crowding on public transport services in the Paris region. Qualitative research, stated preference (SP) experiments, and passenger counts and surveys were conducted to obtain such values. A simple method was developed to quantify the passenger benefits of specific public transport projects aiming to reduce crowding on existing lines. This method was applied in a case study to the regional rail (RER) RER Line E extension project. With regard to the value of crowding, the research indicated that the perceived disutility of crowding could be more accurately described as a constant disutility per trip than as a travel time multiplier. However, for ease of application often the multiplier formulation was preferred. When the value of crowding was expressed as a travel time multiplier, values were obtained ranging from 1.0 when all passengers could be seated to 1.7 for standing bus passengers when the vehicles reached their maximum capacity. Also for seated passengers, multipliers well above 1.0 were observed for (highly) congested vehicles (maximum value 5 1.5 for bus passengers). These values were applied in a case study that estimated the effects of an extension of the regional rail line RER E in the western direction, partially running parallel to the existing RER Line A. This extension would reduce the current (very) high crowding levels on the RER A and B lines to more moderate levels and generate benefits of about �23 million per year.

Congestion from a Multimodal Perspective

“…Recent contributions like Kroes et al (2014) and Hörcher et al (2017) show that the cost of crowding can be captured in a revealed preference framework as well, especially when demand patterns can be recovered using smart card and vehicle location data. In terms of the magnitude of disutilities, these empirical results reveal that the cost of crowding may be similar to the cost of uncrowded travel time.…”

Valuing Convenience in Public Transport

“…Incorporating convenience can clearly alter the outcome of costbenefit assessments of projects and policies. For example, the Paris experience (Kroes et al, 2013) demonstrates that counting the benefits of reducing crowding added around 6% to the total benefits of the investment to extend RER line E 13 .…”

“…Our view is that this is not supported by the evidence. Kroes et al (2013) concluded in their study of crowding penalties in Paris:…”

“…For example, the resource paper by Kroes et al (2013) integrating the value of crowding in the socio-economic appraisal of the extension of RER line E increases total benefits by 6%. Similar orders of magnitude are found in studies for Japan, as were discussed in the presentation at the Roundtable by Kato.…”

“…The figures are somewhat lower than those so far discussed. Kroes et al (2013) provided a resource paper as part of this Roundtable, reporting the findings of an extensive study of crowding in Paris. This covered rail, metro, tramway and Summary and conclusions -Discussion Paper 2014-02 © OECD/ITF 2014 bus.…”