The Impact of Rising Gasoline Prices on US Public Transit Ridership
Abstract
This paper analyzes the impact of increasing fuel prices on public transit ridership
in
the United States. Using regional gasoline prices and transit ridership and supply
figures
from 218 US cities from 2002 to 2008, I estimate the cross-price elasticity of demand
for
four modes of transit with respect to gasoline price. I report how these estimates
vary
between cities and test to see if these cross-price elasticities have changed over
time. I
find a cross-price elasticity of transit demand with respect to gasoline price ranging
from
-0.012 to 0.213 for commuter rail, -0.377 to 0.137 for heavy rail, -0.103 to 0.507
for light
rail, and 0.047 to 0.121 for bus. These estimates vary significantly between cities
but are
not highly correlated with urban population size. Additionally, I find evidence suggesting
that the cross-price elasticity has increased over this time period for commuter rail,
light
rail, and motorbus transit.
Type
Honors thesisDepartment
EconomicsPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/1379Citation
Blanchard, Christopher (2009). The Impact of Rising Gasoline Prices on US Public Transit Ridership. Honors thesis, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/1379.Collections
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