Does high-speed rail accessibility influence residential property prices? Hedonic estimates from southern Taiwan

A new high-speed railway line (HSR) connects seven metropolitan areas in Taiwan. From Tainan, it is possible to reach Kaohsiung, Chiayi and Taichung in less than one hour, implying an enlarged spatial range of feasible commuting opportunities. The implicit price of HSR accessibility is estimated using hedonic price functions for the residential property market. The results of pre-specified and Box-Cox hedonic price functions are compared. The estimated functions show that HSR accessibility has at most a minor effect on house prices. High ticket prices and entrenched residential location patterns prevent otherwise feasible daily commuting opportunities between Tainan and other cities.     

Accessibility and proximity effects of bus rapid transit on housing prices: Heterogeneity across price quantiles and space

Bus rapid transit (BRT) systems have mushroomed worldwide in the last few decades. An enriched understanding of BRT capitalization effects is essential. Although the BRT accessibility effect on housing prices has been extensively explored, the effect of proximity to the BRT corridor (which may be related to unattractive landscape and noise pollution) has been little scrutinized. More importantly, whether and how the two effects vary across price levels and space have yet to be sufficiently studied. To this end, we estimate the effect of BRT accessibility and proximity on housing prices by applying a battery of econometric methods (including hedonic pricing models, spatial regression models, quantile regression models, and a geographically weighted regression model) to 5185 observations in the housing market in Xiamen Island, China. The results of this study are: (1) BRT accessibility premiums and proximity penalties simultaneously exist in the housing market; (2) buyers of high-priced housing have a greater willingness to pay for avoiding the nuisances attributed to proximity to the BRT corridor; (3) the effect of BRT on housing prices is spatially heterogeneous; (4) the BRT accessibility effect is larger in suburban areas than in urban areas; and (5) housing prices are more predictable near the city centers than outside the area, which may be because a greater proportion of the price of a house near the city centers is derived from the location (rather than the building structure). Finally, policy implications (e.g., building acoustic barriers and planting vegetation along the BRT corridor and improving the transit service in suburban areas) are discussed.     

Modeling job accessibility using online map data: An extended two-step floating catchment area method with multiple travel modes

Current quantitative measures of job accessibility rarely consider the interaction between job opportunities and labor force, and the effects of dynamic travel mode choice. Drawing upon multiple open-source datasets, we develop a job accessibility index by extending the two-step floating catchment area method (2SFCA). The job accessibility indices are calculated for different commuting scenarios concerning distance, time, and travel modes. The results suggest that job accessibility is very sensitive to travel modes, and using a single travel mode would contribute to a biased job accessibility index. The job accessibility indices with combined travel modes are more geographically balanced than using a single travel mode. Furthermore, the new index is employed to examine the spatial pattern of job accessibility and explore the relationship between job accessibility, housing, and population in the Pudong district, Shanghai. The new job accessibility indices manifest the impacts of ring roads on the spatial distribution of job accessibility. A comparative analysis shows that the floating population has poor driving-based job accessibility but can access job opportunities using public transit. Also, poor job accessibility leads to low rent prices but has little impact on medium-high rent. Both transit-based and drive-based job accessibility indices are positively related to housing prices. Our study highlights the importance of considering dynamic travel mode choice in job accessibility research. The research outcomes also contribute to the literature on spatial mismatch by revealing the unique relationship between job accessibility, housing, and population in urban China.     

Impact of new motorway on housing prices in rural North-East Slovenia

The literature generally agrees that improved accessibility has a positive effect on housing values. The motorway constructions in north-eastern Slovenia, completed between 2002 and 2018, significantly improved the accessibility of less developed areas. In this article, we examine how the new motorway has affected the housing values in the mostly rural north-eastern part of Slovenia. We analysed the distance decay effect of amenities and disamenities of motorway links and ramps as well as bus stops, train stations, and railway links on housing prices. In addition to the transport infrastructure variables, we analysed numerous other structural and environmental variables. We estimated three different spatial hedonic regression models: the spatial autoregression model, the spatial error model, and the spatial autocorrelation model.The results indicate that none of proximities to the bus stop, train station, or motorway link have had a significant effect on housing value. However, the rail track proximity exhibited a significant negative association with price. Furthermore, the effect of distance to the nearest motorway ramp on housing value is significant: it is stronger for closer distances (i.e. starting from 500 m) and decreases up to 6 km, while the effect of distances below 500 m is insignificant. Our results also show that bigger dwellings, more rooms, and the presence of a balcony, elevator, central auto heating system, new installation, and air conditioning as well as an apartment in a single house, are associated with a higher housing price. On the contrary, selling the dwellings together with a parking place and basement reduced the average price of the housing property. Comparing our results to the literature, we proved our hypothesis that the negative effect of a motorway is less pronounced in rural areas compared to urban areas and that the positive effect of accessibility is stronger in rural areas and extends over a wider geographical area.     

A GIS-based spatial statistical approach to modeling job accessibility by transportation mode: case study of Columbus,Ohio

Improving job accessibility based on transport connectivity helps to address equity issues. Spatial autocorrelation (SA) is also a focus of interest in transportation planning, but has been neglected in analyzing job accessibility in metropolitan areas. In this study, GIS-based job accessibilities by walking, transit, and car are computed for the metropolitan area of Columbus, Ohio, and three transport-based spatial autoregressive (SAR) models are estimated to account for the SA of job accessibility among neighboring block groups, while controlling for built-environment and socioeconomic factors. SA intensities and extents are compared in order to better understand local spatial clusters of job accessibility across the region. Direct and indirect spillover effects due to an investment change in transportation facilities are estimated and provide important transportation planning information. The results also show that walking-accessed jobs are primarily related to physical settings (e.g., land uses) at the local level. Locations with a higher share of zero-vehicle housing units have better job accessibility by transit. There is a spatial mismatch between Asian population clusters and transit-accessed jobs, possibly because of the car-oriented residential clusters around Honda of America Manufacturing in suburban areas. More importantly, locations with a higher share of single-parent households are at a disadvantage in overall job accessibility. Due to its complex transportation needs, a society friendly to single parents should spatially integrate accessible jobs with other needed activities via land-use and transportation planning. Alternatively, car-ownership programs and non-spatial social supports also might be effective to help secure job opportunities and perform daily life activities.     

The relationship between accessibility and price – The case of Swedish food stores

Food accessibility has been an important issue for as long as there has been human civilisation. Today, food, at least in the wealthier parts of the world, is accessible to most people. However, there are concerns regarding the market power of major retailers and the availability of affordable food among certain population groups. In this paper, I investigate how well accessibility, the ease with which individuals can reach various destinations, explains food prices in Swedish food stores. I have done this by combining price information on a large number of Swedish food stores from 2010 to 2014 with a state-of-the-art accessibility measure from the Swedish national transport model. I have found a quadratic relationship between accessibility and price, in which prices in the least and most accessible parts of Sweden are 2–3 per cent higher than in the least expensive parts, which are towns and villages around larger cities. The relationship remains significant when adding controls and accessibility is better at explaining price than measures of market structure previously used in the literature.     

Impact of bus rapid transit on residential property prices in Auckland,New Zealand

Dubbed ‘The City of Cars’, congestion is a prominent issue in Auckland, New Zealand. Auckland's first Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system - the Northern Busway - was implemented in 2008. The 6.2-km (km) busway network services the northern suburbs and provides a link to the Central Business District (CBD). This research aims to assess the impact of the Northern Busway on nearby residential property values. Spatio-temporal autoregressive (STAR) modelling is used to examine the accessibility impacts of the BRT under the difference – in – differences (DID) framework alongside a typical OLS and a strictly spatial model. We have observed two main findings. Firstly, the average sale price for properties in the treatment group (within 800 m of the Northern Busway) increased by approximately 3.69% as a result of the opening of the Northern Busway. Second, consistent with previous literature, we find that OLS estimates suffer from high spatial autocorrelation bias, while co-integrating spatial and temporal dependencies within a STAR model improves the precision of estimation. While the models produced a relatively modest accessibility premium on house prices, given traditional importance of private cars coupled with high income levels in the case study area, it would take a generational shift to make a significant impact on house prices as the area becomes more desirable due to reduced traffic congestion/travel time.     

Impact of bus rapid transit on housing price and accessibility changes in Sydney: A repeat sales approach

ABSTRACT

New public transport infrastructure is expected to improve accessibility for local residents, and thus contribute to increased land value. The contribution that a bus rapid transit (BRT) system can make to increased land value is less certain than for rail-based systems, with the literature mostly containing bus-based examples from developing countries with extensive BRT networks. This article considers a BRT system named the Liverpool–Parramatta Transitway (LPT) that was implemented in southwestern Sydney in 2003 to improve public transport accessibility in the local area. A repeat sales model is constructed to investigate the impact of the LPT on residential housing prices and accessibility changes using repeat sales data from before and after the opening of the LPT. This identified little price difference between properties close to LPT stations and outside of the area that could be considered as affected by the LPT service coverage. This outcome is at variance with the theoretical underpinning of land value uplift and other empirical evidence relating to the LPT. Hedonic models using the same repeat sales data investigate the study area in more detail, stratifying the sample by housing type and by comparing separate before and after models. These research outcomes identify the extent to which the BRT system has an impact on local housing prices through accessibility improvements to the study area and provide a deeper understanding as to how the quantification of land value uplift from BRT represents one element of the wider economic benefits of a BRT system.     

The impact of Seoul's subway Line 5 on residential property values

This research investigates the impact of the construction of a new subway line (Line 5) in Seoul on nearby residential property values. A hedonic pricing model shows that distance from a Line 5 subway station had a statistically significant effect on residential prices only prior to the line's opening. This is consistent with the anticipatory effect observed in other studies. Moreover, accessibility to transit had, in general, less of an impact on house prices than other variables such as the size of the unit, the quality of the school district, proximity to the high-status Kangnam subcenter, and possibly accessibility to recreational resources.     

Measuring cycling accessibility in metropolitan areas

Different measures of cycling accessibility have been widely introduced in transportation planning. However, those measurements are mainly restricted by the availability of travel behavior data. In addition, there has been limited comprehensive research on the importance of cycling accessibility to destinations based on the travel time or distance. In this paper, a new index for measuring bikeability in metropolitan areas is introduced. A Cycling Accessibility Index (CAI) is developed for quantifying cycling accessibility within local areas in metropolitan Melbourne, Australia. CAI is defined according to gravity-based measures of accessibility. This index measures cycling accessibility levels in terms of diversity of different land uses, number of activities in statistical areas, and the travel impedance between origins and destinations. The Victorian Integrated Survey of Travel and Activity (VISTA) dataset was used to evaluate the index and investigate the association between the cycling accessibility levels and the number of bicycle trips in local areas. The index is assessed by investigating the association between levels of cycling accessibility and the number of bicycle trips in statistical areas. Key findings indicate that there is a significant positive association between bike trips and the CAI.     

The impact of carbon emission fees on passenger demand and air fares: A game theoretic approach

The implementation of an environmental market-based measure on U.S. aviation industry is studied. Under this policy, each airline pays a carbon fee for the carbon dioxide emissions it generates. The impact on ticket prices and corresponding market shares is investigated via the joint estimation of an air travel demand model and an airlines' behavior model. In the demand model, aggregate air traffic data is used to determine the marginal effects of flight attributes that are specific to itinerary, airline and airport on market share. The airline's behavior model incorporates the carbon fee in the airline marginal cost. After the implementation of the carbon policy, the increased cost forces airlines to adjust ticket prices in order to maximize profits. The results obtained by the proposed model indicate a moderate price increase which strongly depends on the per tonne carbon price. Air travel demand falls from 2.4% to 21% depending on the carbon price level.     

A compact city for the wealthy? Employment accessibility inequalities between occupational classes in the London metropolitan region 2011

The prevalence of gentrification and housing marketisation processes in many cities points to increasingly wealthy inner-city areas and potentially greater population segregation by income. It is plausible that these trends are contributing to regional accessibility inequalities, though quantitative research testing this link is limited. This paper examines differences in employment accessibility between Standard Occupational Classification groups in the London Metropolitan Region for 2011 for car, transit, bus only and walking modes. Additionally, changes in occupational class populations 2006–2016 are considered, revealing continuing inner-city gentrification. Employment accessibility is calculated using cumulative measures, based on travel times from multi-modal network modelling. The results show that while car accessibility is relatively equal between occupational classes, public transport, bus and walk accessibility have significant inequalities favouring professional classes. Low income groups have lower accessibility for the most affordable bus and walk modes, and inequalities are greater for residents in the wider metropolitan region. Furthermore, professional groups combine accessibility advantages with the highest rates of owner occupation, maximising housing wealth benefits. Lower income groups are exposed to rent increases, though this is offset by social housing, which remains the most prevalent tenure in Inner London for low income classes.     

Transit-based job accessibility and urban spatial structure

Job accessibility is a measure of people, opportunities, and transportation system that are fundamental elements of urban spatial structure. Therefore, job accessibility can be used as a tool to understand urban spatial structure. Studying transit-based job accessibility can provide more insight into inner cities. To study transit-based job accessibility, a person-based approach is needed in order to take full consideration of the elements. However, person-based approaches are substantially restricted by the availability of individual trip data. This paper takes a simulation approach to study transit-based job accessibility. First, transit-dependent worker agents are generated using a population synthesis. Then the agents are enabled with job search and commuting capabilities. Once the agents are deployed in a commuting simulation, individual commuting trips are recorded. An individual job accessibility index is developed based on simulated commuting trips. The index is normalized with an expected value of 1.0 and a measurable uncertainty level, which makes it easy to interpret and suitable for cross-regional studies. A case study is conducted in Tucson, Arizona, where about 10,000 transit-dependent worker agents produce more than 600,000 individual commuting trips during morning and afternoon peak hours. Census block, group-level job accessibility shows a random spatial pattern that coincides with a dispersed urban spatial structure of the case study area.     

Job accessibility through public transport and unemployment in Latin America: The case of Montevideo (Uruguay)

Accessibility to job opportunities is one of the factors that explains labor outcomes. For developing countries, public transport plays a key role in providing the population with access to employment opportunities. This paper aims to quantify accessibility by public transport to employment in Montevideo, Uruguay and to explore how accessibility to job opportunities via public transport relates to unemployment. To do so, we calculate a cumulative measure of accessibility to job opportunities for 1063 small zones—approximately 4–6 blocks each—within Montevideo. This measure yields accurate data on accessibility and can be assigned to individual households. Accessibility in Montevideo is unevenly distributed among social strata and is concentrated within the central (and wealthier) areas of the city. In addition, a multilevel logistic regression analysis indicates that greater accessibility to jobs via public transport is associated with a lower probability of being unemployed. This finding suggests that improving accessibility to job opportunities via public transit may enhance individual labor outcomes.     

Exploring job accessibility in the transformation context: an institutionalist approach and its application in Beijing

There is a strong need to explore the determinants of worker’s commuting time as the declines in job accessibility associated with the dramatic growth of commuting time have become a serious negative effect on the quality of urban life in megacities of China. Most well-developed theories exploring change in commuting time are based on neo-classical economic theory. This paper argues however that in the case of China institutional factors of the housing provision system and labour mobility management have been more important. The paper conceptualizes an institutionalist approach incorporating housing and controls over labour mobility and applies it to analyse these influences on workers’ commuting time in Beijing. The analysis shows that the interaction of housing provision, the market system and the Hukou system together have significant impact upon individual commuting time allowing for worker’s annual household income, occupation and transport mode. The findings suggest that the market-oriented housing reforms have changed the local jobs–housing balance that prevailed in pre-reform era and have thus induced growth of commuting time; the remaining the unfair treatment of residents according to their Hukou status may influence the floating worker’s ability to connect housing and workplace opportunities that could reduce commuting time. With respect to future studies, the institutionalist approach seems to be an efficient means of exploring particular factors that emerge in the transformation of an economy.     

Are we keeping up? Accessibility,equity and air quality in regional planning

Many US metropolitan areas have undergone dramatic shifts in socioeconomic organization.. As urban areas gentrify, many low-income residents and communities of color have transitioned towards the exurban periphery. These suburban neighborhoods tend to have fewer employment opportunities and are fairly disconnected from public transportation networks serving the urban core. Using regional transportation plans (RTPs) for three California MPOs, we show that the transportation accessibility and environmental health issues affecting these exurban communities are unique and inadequately captured by the MPOs' current equity metrics. MPOs performance evaluation is regional and achieving equity within the urban core communities will not address emerging equity, accessibility and air quality concerns for exurban communities. With a brief history and a focused case study of RTPs for the San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego, and Fresno, we examine how air pollution, equity, and transportation interact in three different types of 21st century cities. We find that when allocating limited transportation funds, California metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) prioritize the improvement of existing public transportation in urban core areas over expansion of transit networks towards disconnected exurbs. This approach is an effective way to reduce vehicle miles traveled (and thus, air pollution) at the regional level due to high population concentrations in urban cores. However, this approach also concentrates the air quality benefits of VMT reduction in these same urban core areas. Exurban residents' on-road and near-road exposure to Traffic-Related Air Pollution (TRAP) will not be reduced by improving public transit within the urban core. We argue that although these suburban and exurban communities are a small percentage of the regional population, they have a right to share in the benefits of transportation investments, particularly given the historical and ongoing patterns of displacement and economic exclusion from urban core areas.     

An innovative transit system and its impact on low income users: the case of the Metrocable in Medellín

The Metrocable in Medellín, Colombia, is an innovative system to improve access to deprived areas located in hilly zones. The idea to use cable cars as feeders to the metro was integrated into an ambitious urban project that, to date, has improved accessibility dramatically for some low-income residents. Using data before and after the project’s implementation, we evaluate the impact on social equity for the population in the zone of influence, considering changes in accessibility to employment and in housing-related costs. The access provided by the project to the main high-employment centres has doubled the number of opportunities that can be reached by the “target population,” even though travel-time savings and costs have seen only small changes. In fact, prior access to the CBD was poor and expensive, but time and costs were reduced with the Metrocable, although this reduction was not equal for all locations in the metropolitan area. In general, we argue that the main benefits, in terms of accessibility that differentiates the areas analysed from those used for comparison, are related to a localised ease of access to specific centres of activity according to the centralised development of the city’s job market along the mass transit lines. In terms of housing costs, we developed a set of difference-in-difference models that considered rent, transport, and public utilities costs; however, none of them have allowed us to conclude that there was a statistically valid relationship between the Metrocable and the changes in costs between the two analysed populations.     

Evaluating the equity implications of ridehailing through a multi-modal accessibility framework

In rapidly-growing metropolitan regions, it is crucial that transportation-related policies and infrastructure are designed to ensure that everyone can participate equitably in economic, social, and civil opportunities. Ridehailing services are touted to improve mobility options, but there is scant research that incorporates this mode within an accessibility framework. This paper employs a generalized cost measure in a multi-modal accessibility framework, namely Access Profile Analysis, to assess the role of ridehailing in providing job access to historically under-resourced parts of Toronto, Canada, referred to by the city as Neighborhood Improvement Areas (NIAs). Ridehailing is analyzed both as a mode of commute and as a feeder to the transit network (a first-mile solution). The results indicate that there are two main determinants of the extent to which ridehailing provides additional accessibility over transit: the transit level of service at the origin zone and the zone's proximity to employment opportunities. The ridehailing mode is shown to increase accessibility especially to closer destinations (jobs), with the highest improvement seen in the city's inner suburbs. On the other hand, integrating ridehailing with public transit does little to improve access to jobs. Compared to the rest of the city, NIAs experience a higher accessibility improvement from ridehailing alone, but not from its integration with transit. Nonetheless, job accessibility remains lower in NIAs than in other areas – even after the introduction of ridehailing.     

The first rapid tram line in Poland: How has it affected travel behaviours,housing choices and satisfaction,and apartment prices?

The opening of the Poznań Rapid Tram (pol. Poznański Szybki Tramwaj, PST) in the year 1997 symbolically marked the beginning of a new era in the development of urban transportation systems in Poland. In this paper we would like to address the following question: more than one decade after the opening of the PST, what are its effects in terms of travel behaviours, housing choices and satisfaction, and apartment prices? In order to answer this question, we combined data on travel behaviours and housing choices from a survey based on a sample of nearly 300 households with data on housing prices from over 1400 real estate transaction records from the period between 2010 and 2013. Our results show that the proximity to PST affects travel behaviours, as respondents living close to PST stops confirmed that they use this form of transportation more often. There also seems to be some effect on housing choices; in locations close to PST stops we found many households living in rental housing, particularly university students. Also, about 20% of interviewees declared that they would pay more for apartments located closer to the rapid tram. However, that effect was only partly confirmed through the analysis of transaction prices. Using standard and spatial econometric regressions including variables like apartment size, floor number, amenities, and type of building we found a weak correlation between the proximity to PST and apartment prices. In conclusion, we argue that treating property price effects as the main justification for public transportation projects might be a doubtful choice, because in some cases the principal impacts of such projects might be visible in terms of residents' satisfaction and travel behaviours.     

Public transport accessibility in metropolitan areas: A new approach incorporating population density

Improving public transport accessibility can be considered an effective way of reducing the external costs and negative side effects of motorized commuting. Although there have been many studies conducted that have measured access levels to public transport stops/stations, there has been limited research on measuring accessibility that integrates population density within geographical areas. This study develops a new measure that considers public transport service frequency and population density as an important distributional indicator. A public transport accessibility index (PTAI) is formulated for quantifying accessibility within local areas in metropolitan Melbourne, Australia. A public transport network model is applied to identify the service coverage of public transport modes using a Geographical Information System (GIS). A consistent method is introduced for evaluating public transport accessibility for different levels of analysis, from single elements, including public mode stops to network analysis. The Victorian Integrated Survey of Travel and Activity (VISTA) is used to evaluate the index and examine the association between commuting trips undertaken by public transport and the level of accessibility within the Melbourne metropolitan region. Furthermore, the new index is compared with two existing approaches using the VISTA dataset. Key findings indicate that the PTAI had a stronger association whilst showing more use of public transport in areas with higher values of the PTAI.