A new empirical approach for mitigating exploding implicit prices in mixed multinomial logit models

This paper introduces a new shifted negative log-normal distribution for the price parameter in mixed multinomial logit models. The new distribution, labeled as the μ-shifted negative log-normal distribution, has desirable properties for welfare analysis and in particular a point mass that is further away from zero than the negative log-normal distribution. This contributes to mitigating the “exploding” implicit prices issue commonly found when the price parameter is specified as negative log-normal and the model is in preference space. The new distribution is tested on five stated preference datasets. Comparisons are made with standard alternative approaches such as the willingness-to-pay (WTP) space approach. It is found that the μ-shifted distribution yields substantially lower mean marginal WTP estimates compared to the negative log-normal specification and similar to the values derived from models estimated in WTP-space with flexible distributions, while at the same time fitting the data as well as the negative log-normal specification

Economic Valuation of the Renewal of Urban Streets: A Choice Experiment

Examination of users’ preferences and needs can provide an additional and strong basis for decision making, which is applicable in the case of urban street renewal. In this study, a choice experiment on street renewal plans in Shanghai was conducted using an online survey (N = 546), and people’s willingness to pay (WTP) for a set of street attributes was estimated, including bicycle lane separation, pedestrian path width, green looking ratio and recreational and commercial amenities. By comparing WTPs, the results show that people had greater preferences for adding resting facilities than any other attributes in this scene, and they also give some examples of prices of street attributes in a street renewal scene. The gender, age and occupation of participants had a significant effect on WTPs. Females showed greater WTP for setting separate bicycle lanes and improving greening and amenities, and the age of street users had a positive effect on WTP through the payment for street renewal. The reasoning section of the survey indicated the concern on the cost–benefit ratio, the need to renew and overall impression when choosing, and only a few participants were unwilling to pay anything for street improvement. This kind of economic valuation can estimate the values that people place on street attributes that are otherwise not measurable in design and planning practice; it can help us understand public preferences for street renewal and support decision making

We want it all: experiences from a survey seeking to capture social network structures, lifetime events and short-term travel and activity planning

Recent work in transport research has increasingly tried to broaden out beyond traditional areas such as mode choice or car ownership and has tried to position travel decisions within the broader life context. However, while important progress has been made in terms of how to capture these additional dimensions, both in terms of detailed tracking of movements and in-depth data collection of long term decisions or social network influences, surveys have tended to look at only a handful (or often one) of these issues in isolation, especially at the data collection end. Making these links is the key aim of the data collection described in this paper. We conducted a comprehensive survey capturing respondents’ travel, energy and residential choices, their social environment, life history and short-term travel patterns. The survey is composed of a detailed background questionnaire, a life-course calendar and a name generator and name interpreter. Participants were also required to use a smartphone tracking app for 2-weeks. We believe that this is an unprecedented effort that joins complexity of the survey design, amount of information collected and sample size. The present paper gives a detailed overview of the different survey components and provides initial insights into the resulting data. We share lessons that we have learned and explain how our decisions in terms of specification were shaped by experiences from other data collections

Stated preferences

Numerous articles dealing with stated preferences are published every year in journals related to agriculture, environment or health. Hence, it is not easy to find all the relevant articles when performing a benefit transfer, a meta-analysis or a review of literature. Also, it is not easy to identify trends or common practices in these fields regarding the elicitation method. We have constructed and made available a unique database comprising 1,657 choice experiment and/or contingent valuation articles published in journals related to agriculture, environment or health between 2004 and 2016. We show that the number of choice experiment studies keeps increasing and the single-bounded dichotomous choice format is the most employed question format in contingent valuation studies. We also consider the new nomenclature proposed by Carson and Louviere (2011) and we show that the “discrete choice experiment” is more popular than the “matching method”, especially in journals related to agriculture

Preferences for electric motorcycle adoption in Bandung, Indonesia

Due to an alarming threat of air pollution and climate change, governments around the world are now actively promoting electric vehicles. The case for vehicle electrification is even more important in big cities of developing countries, where motorcycle is a dominant mode of travel. To promote electric motorcycles successfully, we need to understand the factors that would drive the consumer choices when buying a motorcycle. This study chose Bandung in Indonesia as the case study location, where nearly 75% of vehicles are motorcycles. This study conducted a survey of preferences from over 700 residents and included battery charging methods such as plug-in/battery swap at home/office, superfast charging at stations, and deployed an innovative modelling approach constraining the mixture of distributions for monetary attributes. The study found that quick recharge in 10 minutes and battery swap at station are preferred over the base method of plug-in at home/work. The battery swap at home has been perceived the same as plug-in home/work and the respondents are indifferent to this option

To tax or to ban? A discrete choice experiment to elicit public preferences for phasing out glyphosate use in agriculture

In 2023, the European Union will vote on the reauthorization of glyphosate use, renewed in 2017 despite concern on impacts on the environment and public health. A ban is supported by several Member States but rejected by most farmers. What are citizens’ preferences to phase out glyphosate? To assess whether taxation could be an alternative to a ban, we conducted a discrete choice experiment in five European countries. Our results reveal that the general public is strongly willing to pay for a reduction in glyphosate use. However, while 75.5% of respondents stated to support a ban in the pre-experimental survey, experimental results reveal that in 73.35% of cases, earmarked taxation schemes are preferred when they lead to a strong reduction in glyphosate use for an increase in food price lower than that induced by a ban. When glyphosate reduction is balanced against its costs, a tax may be preferred

Modeling Quality and Price Perception in the Choice of Drinking Water in France: A Hybrid Choice Model Approach

The water resources literature usually discards the important price difference between bottled water and tap water as a predictor of drinking water choice. In France, bottled water is about 100 times more expensive than tap water. Using 4,003 survey responses, we model water resources quality (mis)‐perception and water price (mis)‐perceptions by means of a hybrid choice model. We show that respondents who are more likely to consider the quality of water resources as “very poor” or “poor” are less likely to drink tap water. Furthermore, we find that respondents who do not report the correct price difference between tap water and bottled water are more likely to drink bottled water, which is a novel finding, as significant price effects of this type have never been reported in the literature on drinking water choice

The effect of attribute-alternative matrix displays on preferences and processing strategies

When analyzing discrete choice data we assume that respondents compare alternatives and make a utility maximizing choice. The majority of DCEs use a matrix display with one row per attribute and one column per alternative. A comparison by alternatives implies that respondents process the choice task column-by-column. However, evidence from psychology and judgment and decision making research suggest that learned reading patterns dominate and as such the standard matrix display might induce processing by attributes rather than alternatives. We test this using a split sample survey conducted in France where respondents were randomly allocated into a standard or transposed matrix display group. Our results show that there is no difference in relative scale between the two groups, but that elicited preferences differ. Importantly, ASCs are insignificant in the transposed condition. We find no difference in propensity to use simplifying strategies, but respondents in the standard display condition are more likely to choose according to a random regret minimization (RRM) model rather than random utility model (RUM). We discuss the implications of our findings for future discrete choice experiments

Capturing relationship strength: a choice model for leisure time, frequency of interaction and ranking in name generators

In the past few decades, the travel behaviour literature has devoted increasing attention to understanding the demand for leisure and social travel and the engagement in leisure activities. Some of the studies in this field have adopted a social network perspective, acknowledging that it is mainly the people involved motivating such activities and travel. It is in this literature that the present study places itself. We develop a joint choice model to analyse the share of time spent in leisure activities with each social contact, the frequency of interaction by different modes and the ranking in a name generator. We show that these different decisions are linked by an underlying latent factor that we refer to as relationship strength. As this relationship strength cannot be directly observed, we use a number of different indicators for it in measurement models, including what we believe to be a novel use of the position in which a social contact is ranked in the name generator. The study sheds light on the concept of relationship strength, which is believed to be crucial for understanding social interactions and leisure activity engagement. The results of our joint model are in line with expectations and improve the understanding of relationship strength on the basis of the nature of the relationship and homophily measures