Yun, J. Strategies for Improving the Sustainability of Fare-Free Policy for the Elderly through Preferences by Travel Modes. Sustainability2023, 15, 14678.
Yun, J. Strategies for Improving the Sustainability of Fare-Free Policy for the Elderly through Preferences by Travel Modes. Sustainability 2023, 15, 14678.
Yun, J. Strategies for Improving the Sustainability of Fare-Free Policy for the Elderly through Preferences by Travel Modes. Sustainability2023, 15, 14678.
Yun, J. Strategies for Improving the Sustainability of Fare-Free Policy for the Elderly through Preferences by Travel Modes. Sustainability 2023, 15, 14678.
Abstract
Considering the aging society and budget constraints, a strategy for reforming public transportation welfare policies is essential for sustainability. Among the various transportation welfare policies, fare discount policies are provided to specific age groups, and most countries offer benefits to several public transportation. South Korea provides a fare-free policy limited to subways, and the need for policy modification is emerging due to sustainability problems caused by an aging society. Hence, the scope of the policy should be expanded to all travel modes, but the discount rate should be reduced, or the target group should be reduced in consideration of the budget. This study proposes a travel mode to focus on by city through the preference of the elderly. The latent class model is employed to classfy stated preference data collected from the survey. The estimation results show a significant preference heterogeneity depending on the level of subway supply by region, and a policy focused on subways would be more reasonable in cities with sufficient subway infrastructure. Hence, regarding sustainability, it may be more appropriate to focus on specific means than to provide the same discount policy for all public transport.
Keywords
Public service obligation; Fare-free policy; Heterogeneity of mode choice; Stated preference; Latent class model
Subject
Engineering, Transportation Science and Technology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
