Meta-Analysis for Explaining the Variance in Public Transport Demand Elasticities in Europe

This paper assesses key factors that influence the sensitivity of public transport users to transport costs in Europe, by carrying out a comparative analysis of the different elasticity values of demand for transport that are being used in some of the different Member States.
Our empirical base is elasticity studies in Norway, Finland, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The paper identifies a set of potential factors causing variances between results of different studies. An indepth rough set analysis of causes of variances between elasticity values across the four countries is presented. Our analysis supports the literature, which indicates that the difference between aggregated, empirical-based research methods and the use of disaggregated choice models, as well as model assumptions, explain the variance in elasticity
values across studies. It also appears that the country involved, the number of competitive
modes, and type of data collected are important factors in accounting for the size of elasticities.