Are people willing to pay more for new energy bus fares?

This paper adopts the contingent valuation method to study people's willingness to pay for the adoption of new energy buses in the four most developed cities of China: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. An interval regression model is employed to analyze the influencing factors of people's willingness to pay and estimate the exact amount of extra money people would pay per fare. The results show that approximately eighty percent of the respondents in the four cities would like to pay extra fare to support the adoption of new energy buses and the specific amount is 0.653 RMB/fare among all the respondents. Those with higher household income, who are younger, who think the adoption can significantly improve air quality and who deem that they live in a place with good air quality are willing to pay higher. But public concern about energy security issue in China does not have significant impact on the willingness to pay. It is therefore recommended that setting a higher price for new energy bus fare is reasonable and more knowledge of new energy buses should be conveyed to the public, especially its purpose of improving air quality and alleviating the high pressure of energy security.