How public transport costs influence the residential location choice of German commuters

Abstract

The negative utility of commuting arises from the time spent and the costs incurred. While numerous studies have examined the effect of commuting time on residential location choice, only a few studies published in recent decades have included commuting costs in their analyses, especially public transport costs. We used the official commuter statistics listing the number of commuters by residential and workplace municipality, i.e. a revealed preference origin-destination commuter matrix, for the Frankfurt region in Germany. We estimated multinomial logit models examining residential location choice as the explained variable and using public transport commuting costs as an explanatory variable. The results indicate that public transport commuting costs have an impact on residential location choice, but should not replace public transport commuting time as an explanatory variable. We calculated the value of travel time for commuting by public transport as a function of the number of working days per month. It ranges from 4.3 €/hour for ten working days per month to 8.6 €/hour for twenty working days per month. These results fall in line with existing research, despite the fact that our data and methods diverge from the approaches used in previous studies. Our results show that public transport commuting costs should be taken into account when analysing residential location choices, especially in the light of new pricing policies such as fare-free public transport or nationwide transit passes.