ANALYSIS ON PRICE ELASTICITIES OF URBAN RAILWAY USERS IN TERMS OF PAYMENT MODES

Abstract

New payment methods, such as farecard, smart card, etc., have been introduced to the transportation service gradually. These make travelers have richer alternatives of payment modes. On the other hand, in general, the cashless payment method may paralyze the consumer's perception of price. Then, this paper aims to analyze price elasticities of travel demand based on the MNL model for a railway route choice, and to compare them among three payment modes: farecard; coupon ticket; and ordinary ticket. The authors group sets up two null hypotheses on the utility function and tests them statistically. As results of the tests, we find that the elasticities do not differ between farecard-holder and non-farecard-holder, but differs to some extent between the payment modes used.