Choosing carpooling or car sharing as a mode: Swiss stated choice experiments

Abstract

A recent study aimed to estimate the potential of carpooling in Switzerland. Part of this study was a survey in which the attitude of the public towards this transport option was investigated using both multi-response questions and stated preference (SP) experiments. In order to gain an insight on how innovative modes are perceived in general, the SP part was composed of two different experiments, one of them including carsharing as alternative. In the first experiment respondents were choosing among car, public transport, carpooling as driver and carpooling as passenger. In the second experiment respondents were choosing among car, public transport and carsharing. This paper reports on the multinomial logit choice models, which were estimated based on participants’ responses. Both SP experiments were based on a trip reported by participants during a phone interview. For each experiment two specifications, a linear and a nonlinear one were estimated. The nonlinear specification allows investigating the impact of selected socio-demographic variables, in this case income and travel time, on the parameters of the models and on willingness to pay indicators. Such indicators permit to complement the qualitative discussion of the results with quantitative analyses and provide a useful background for policy evaluation and planning.