Crowding in public transport: Who cares and why?

Luke Haywood, Martin Koning and Guillaume Monchambert

Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 2017, vol. 100, issue C, 215-227

Abstract: Crowding on public transport (PT) is a major issue for commuters around the world. Nevertheless, economists have rarely investigated the causes of crowding discomfort. Furthermore, most evidence on the costs of PT crowding is based on trade-offs between crowding, travel time and money. First, this paper assesses discomfort with PT crowding at various density levels across heterogeneous individuals using a different methodology. Based on a survey of 1000 Paris PT users, the negative relationship of in-vehicle density on reported satisfaction is similar to previous studies investigating PT crowding costs and stable across most individual characteristics. We also find a sensitive increase in crowding costs over users’ income. Second, we investigate the causes of this discomfort effect. We identify three key drivers: (a) dissatisfaction with standing and not being seated; (b) less opportunities to make use of the time during the journey; (c) the physical closeness of other travelers per se.

Keywords: Public transport; Crowding; Stated satisfaction; Travel cost; Survey data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (44)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Crowding in public transport: Who cares and why? (2017)
Working Paper: Crowding in Public Transport: Who Cares and Why? (2015)
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DOI: 10.1016/j.tra.2017.04.022

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