Does the income level of a neighborhood affect the price elasticity of demand for transit?

Caroline Miller, Ian Savage

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaperpeer-review

Abstract

Changes in ridership at individual stations on Chicago's mass-transit rail system following fare increases in 2004, 2006 and 2009 are analyzed to determine whether the price elasticity of demand varies with the per capita income in the neighborhood surrounding each station. For two of the three fare changes, the fare elasticity becomes more inelastic for weekday trips as the neighborhood income per capita increases. However, a contradictory result is found for one of the fare increases. The relationship is even less clear for weekend trips. These mixed finding are in line with the prior literature which also found an inconsistent relationship.

Conference

ConferenceJoint 57th Annual Conference of Canadian Transportation Research Forum and US Transportation Research Forum: North American Transport Challenges in an Era of Change, CTRF-TRF 2016
Country/TerritoryCanada
CityToronto
Period5/1/165/4/16

Funding

This work was conducted while a student at Northwestern University

Keywords

  • Chicago
  • Income
  • Price elasticity
  • Transit

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Computer Science Applications
  • Management Science and Operations Research
  • Automotive Engineering
  • Transportation

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