Hurried or Risk-adverse Travelers: who will Pay More for Multimodal Information?

Summary By enabling the use of multimodal information by travelers, public policy can improve the use of soft travel modes and reduce the negative externalities of car use. However, such an eco-innovative multimodal information platform might only be efficient if travelers are willing to use it and pay for its development and update. To evaluate the relevance of the creation of a multimodal platform in the Plateau de Saclay – an area located 20 km south of Paris, very concerned by congestion – this paper measures workers' willingness to pay (WTP) for such a platform from a survey conducted in this area. A multinomial logit with unobserved heterogeneity is estimated to determine marginal WTP for the services that could potentially be provided by the platform. The respective effects of risk aversion and value of travel time on this marginal WTP are also investigated. Some gender differences in the evaluation of the platform and its trip planning are also apparent: men's WTP increases with their value of travel time and decreases with their risk aversion while women's WTP is mainly influenced by the constraints they may face when commuting.