Commuters’ willingness-to-pay for improvement of transfer facilities in and around metro stations – A case study in Kolkata

Although several cities in India are developing the metro system, there are lacunas associated with transfer facilities in and around metro stations. The present work aims to investigate the perception of commuters of Kolkata city, India in terms of their willingness-to-pay (WTP) for improvement of transfer facilities. A stated preference survey instrument was designed to collect choice responses from metro commuters and the database was analysed by developing random parameter logit (RPL) models. The decomposition effects of various socioeconomic and trip characteristics on mean estimates were also investigated in random parameter logit models with heterogeneity. The work indicates significantly high WTP of metro commuters as compared to the average metro fare for improvement of various qualitative attributes of transfer facility such as ‘facility for level change’, ‘visual communication’, ‘pedestrian crossing’, and ‘pedestrian environment’. The WTP values are also found to vary across different groups of commuter formed on the basis of ‘trip purpose’, ‘monthly household income’, ‘station type’ and ‘metro fare’. ‘Work trip’ commuters are found to have higher WTP for improvement of access time, pedestrian environment and use of an escalator over the elevator. On the other hand, ‘high-income group’ commuters have shown higher WTP for improvement of access time, pedestrian crossing, and pedestrian environment. While ‘high fare group’ commuters have higher WTP for access time and pedestrian environment, heterogeneity is also observed in WTP for facility for level change, pedestrian crossing, and pedestrian environment across commuters using different ‘station type’ (underground, at-grade, and elevated). The findings from the study provide a basis for formulating policies for the improvement of transfer facilities in and around metro stations giving due attention to the preference of commuters having different socioeconomic and trip characteristics.