Public transport crowding valuation in a post-pandemic era

It is important to understand how public transport passengers value on-board crowding since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The main contribution of this study is to derive the crowding valuation of public transport passengers in a post-pandemic era entirely based on observed, actual passenger route choices. We derive passengers’ crowding valuation for the London metro network based on a revealed preference discrete choice model using maximum likelihood estimation. We find that after the passenger load on-board the metro reaches the seat capacity, the in-vehicle time valuation increases by 0.42 for each increase in the average number of standing passengers per square metre upon boarding. When comparing this result to a variety of crowding valuation studies conducted before the pandemic in London and elsewhere, we can conclude that public transport passengers value crowding more negatively since the pandemic. Furthermore, we found a ratio between out-of-vehicle time and in-vehicle time of 1.94 pre-pandemic and of 1.92 post-pandemic, based on which we conclude that the relative waiting/walking time valuation did not significantly change since the COVID-19 pandemic. Our study results contribute to a better understanding on how on-board crowding in urban public transport is perceived in a European context since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.