Exploring factors affecting how transit service level influences house prices by individual transit mode

Abstract

This paper investigates how the provisions of different types of public transportation modes affect the housing value by adopting an index that represents both ‘to-transit’ (accessibility) and ‘by-transit’ (level of service) accessibility. Our findings provide empirical evidence to support the value capture of public transportation infrastructure that the investment in public transportation, especially in rail and bus, lead to increases in housing value. Further, this paper contributes to the literature by showing the importance of regional income consideration when assessing the impact of transport provision. We find that the housing prices in low-income areas benefit more from the provision of rail and buses compared to the high-income areas, while increasing provision of light rail leads to a reduction in housing value in areas with lower income-level. These moderating effects of income level are found significant in metropolitan areas only. Further, heterogeneity analysis finds that the provision of light rail and rail benefits the value of houses, but not units’ value. Finally, the income level moderates the impact of light rail negatively for houses, but positively for the unit sub-market.