Preferences and welfare impacts of new metro serving airport access

The construction of a new rail infrastructure to connect airports with cities plays a vital role in enhancing the accessibility of airport ground access and mitigating negative externalities resulting from automobiles. To identify air travelers’ preferences for airport ground access by considering a new metro line in Taiwan, we develop nested logit models, which combine revealed and stated preference data. The results reveal significant effects of travel time, travel cost, and individual characteristics; the metro and taxis are highly substituted for airport access. Consumer surplus or accessibility is not equally distributed across air travelers. Travelers who are female, young adults, lower income, and without vehicles in the household obtain considerable consumer benefits from using the new metro. Policy incentives to time and cost have a small impact on the increase in metro share, but consumer surplus surges considerably.