The added value of having multiple options to travel to. An explorative study

Abstract

The economic valuation for different accessibility levels is still an unexplored topic in the field of urban and transport planning. This paper is an exploratory study that aims to quantitatively assess the added value of having multiple options of the same destination available to travel to. A two-phase methodology is proposed based on two different questionnaires. The first phase consists of an explorative questionnaire that helped to narrow the research to two final destinations: medical centres and kindergartens. The second phase is based on the contingent valuation method payment cards, obtaining willingness to pay (WTP) values for different hypothetical situations. A first conclusion is that the value of having multiple options available varies between types of destinations. For basic services this value is motivated by non-use and option values, for non-basic services use values dominate. Secondly, in the case of kindergartens, users and option users have higher a WPT than non-users. For medical centres there is no statistically significant difference between these groups. Third, we did not find a statistical significant impact of demographic variables on WPT values. Fourth, sometimes, it is not only the number of options itself what people appreciate. Many other factors relevant for this appreciation also play a role, examples being the capacity of current destinations or particular characteristics of the destination being valued, especially in the case of non-public destinations.