On the willingness to pay for rural rail service level changes

In the context of current plans for public sector expenditure, cuts in the provision of regional and rural rail services may be under consideration. We show how it is possible to assess the values of different aspects of rural rail services to aid quantitative appraisal and management decision-making. To this end we conduct an SP experiment which values the provision of different levels of rural rail services and compares them with the values held for a replacement bus or coach service. While a number of studies have examined the field of rural rail services in the UK, and other studies have used SP experiments to forecast rail demand, comparatively few studies have combined the two. We find that rural rail services are far from homogenous and that valuations vary from route to route for identifiable reasons. There remains considerable scope for further work in the area, to provide more depth to the findings presented here, to provide values for forecasting and appraisal while also being of use to inform higher level policy decisions.