Public Transport Crowding Valuation: Evidence from College Students in Guangzhou

Overcrowding has grown to be an increasingly important issue for public transit in Guangzhou, China. To capture traveler benefits of reduced crowding from improved public transport, it is necessary to identify the relevant importance of crowding to travelers. This paper analyzes the disutility of crowding in metro car and bus transit with discrete choice models. Based on the stated preference survey data from college students in Guangzhou, the results show that there is non-negligible impact of crowding on passenger travel. The relationship between the disutility of crowding and standee density is not linear; that is, the disutility increases at a modest rate as the standee density increases when it is easy to move around in cars and increases rapidly when it is difficult to move around in cars. Also, there is only a slight difference between the effects of crowding on metro and bus transit