The need for advanced public transport information services when making transfers

This paper reports on a stated choice experiment examining the determinants of travelers' need and willingness to pay for advanced public transport information services. Intercity train travelers are asked to choose among information services that varied in type of information provided by the services, precision of provided dynamic travel time estimates, whether or not the system can provide information unasked for and price. Respondents made these choices conditional on a specified context, denoting the level of perceived unreliability in travel conditions. The modeling results indicate that as hypothesized, transferring during the trip, especially towards low frequency connections, induces a larger need for travel information, a higher preference for services that can provide advice and a higher willingness to pay for information. However, the choice for information services is highly price sensitive, which suggest a low willingness to pay in general.