Long-Distance railway mode choice in Brazil: Evidence from a discrete choice experiment

The appraisal of different railway technologies for new intercity services is essential in policy-making. While High-Speed Rail (HSR) lines provide time-savings by operating at 300 kph, new Conventional Rail (CR) services at 150 kph can offer cost-effective benefits. Therefore, assessing the value of travel time (VTT) helps determining such benefits, particularly in the Global South where they may be relatively unknown. This paper examines the VTT of hypothetical intercity business and non-business HSR and CR services in Brazil using data from a Stated Preference survey and Multinomial Logit (MNL) and Mixed Multinomial Logit (MMNL) models. Results indicate that VTT for HSR on business trips are higher than for CR services and vary significantly between trip purpose. Moreover, the VTTs for business trips are similar to those of European countries on average, but significantly higher than other Global South countries for either railway technology or trip purpose.