The Economics of Crowding in Public Transport

André de Palma (adepalmajl@gmail.com), Charles Lindsey (robin.lindsey@sauder.ubc.ca) and Guillaume Monchambert

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Abstract: We analyze trip-timing decisions of public transit users who trade off crowding costs and disutility from traveling early or late. Considering fixed and then endogenous demand, we derive the equilibrium distribution of users across trains for three fare regimes: no fare, an optimal uniform fare, and an optimal train-dependent fare that supports the social optimum. We also derive the optimal number of trains and train capacity, and compare them across fare regimes. Finally we calibrate the model to a segment of the Paris RER A mass transit system and estimate the potential welfare gains from train-dependent fares.

Keywords: public transport; crowding; pricing; optimal capacity; rail transit (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-tre and nep-ure
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-01203310v2
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published in Journal of Urban Economics, 2017, 101, pp.106 - 122. ⟨10.1016/j.jue.2017.06.003⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01203310

DOI: 10.1016/j.jue.2017.06.003

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