The economic cost of subway congestion: Estimates from Paris. (June 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Haywood, Luke; Koning, Martin; Prud'homme, Remy
• Is Part Of: Economics of transportation. Volume 14(2018)
• Page Start: 1
• Page End: 8
• Publication Date: 2018-06
• Subjects: Congestion costs -- Public transport -- Marginal crowding costs; H23 -- D62 -- R41; Transportation -- Periodicals; 388.049
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ecotra.2017.10.001
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2212-0122

Abstract

Abstract: Related to the increased encouragement of public transport (PT) by policy-makers, over-crowding in PT has become a major issue worldwide. Whilst the impact of in-vehicle crowding on individuals' travel costs has been considered, we focus on aggregate welfare losses. We apply a Pigouvian framework to the case of subways and compute the economic cost of congestion ( E C C ). We combine data of the 14 metro services of the Paris network with survey data from a contingent valuation study of in-vehicle congestion. The gap between current and optimal PT patronage is 9%, and E C C is moderate. For the entire Paris subway network our benchmark estimate of 64.6 million euros per year amounts to 0.9% of total users' costs. We also propose marginal congestion costs relevant for socioeconomic appraisals of transport projects. Highlights: We calculate aggregate welfare losses due to overcrowding on public transport (PT) in Paris. We find optimal PT patronage is 9% below current levels. Costs due to overcrowding are 0.9% of total user costs – small, but similar to car congestion costs in major cities. We differentiate costs by the 14 services of the Paris Metro. We propose various sensitivity tests for these results.