Determinants Of Modal Choice For Freigh
DETERMINANTS OF MODAL CHOICE FOR FREIGHT TRANSPORT: CONSEQUENCES FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF SHORT-SEA SHIPPING BETWEEN SPAIN AND EUROPE
María Feo-Valero a, Leandro García-Menéndez a, Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso b and Eva María Pérez-García a a Instituto de Economía Internacional. Universidad de Valencia. Spain b Instituto de Economía Internacional. Universidad Jaume I. Spain
ABSTRACTi
This paper presents a freight transport demand function consistent with the economic theory of modal choice in a price-time-reliability framework. As a result of exhaustive fieldwork, a mixed logit model is estimated, determining the factors of influence on mode choice decisions for export flows from Spain to the rest of Europe of four selected groups of commodities. The model was specified as a binary logit function where the two modes considered were road transport and shipping. Major empirical findings are: (i) Four different models need to be estimated, one per group of commodities, given the factors influencing mode choice depend on the type of good under analysis. (ii) Two patterns of mode choice determinants are found: relatively low-value commodities are mainly affected by transport costs; whereas high-value sectors are significantly influenced by the quality attributes of service, such as transit time. (iii) Regarding the low-value commodity group, own and cross-price elasticities of mode choice probabilities vary considerably, being shipping probabilities more sensitive than road transport to changes in costs (iv) For the relatively high-value goods, effective road-shipping competition only exists in the very long-haul markets. Own and cross-time elasticities are also found to vary significantly. However, shipping own-time elasticity is larger than the shipping-road cross-time one for both commodities, and hence, short-sea shipping (SSS) depends on its own ability to minimise transit time in order to achieve modal shifts.
KEYWORDS
Mode choice, modal split, logit model,
María Feo-Valero a, Leandro García-Menéndez a, Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso b and Eva María Pérez-García a a Instituto de Economía Internacional. Universidad de Valencia. Spain b Instituto de Economía Internacional. Universidad Jaume I. Spain
ABSTRACTi
This paper presents a freight transport demand function consistent with the economic theory of modal choice in a price-time-reliability framework. As a result of exhaustive fieldwork, a mixed logit model is estimated, determining the factors of influence on mode choice decisions for export flows from Spain to the rest of Europe of four selected groups of commodities. The model was specified as a binary logit function where the two modes considered were road transport and shipping. Major empirical findings are: (i) Four different models need to be estimated, one per group of commodities, given the factors influencing mode choice depend on the type of good under analysis. (ii) Two patterns of mode choice determinants are found: relatively low-value commodities are mainly affected by transport costs; whereas high-value sectors are significantly influenced by the quality attributes of service, such as transit time. (iii) Regarding the low-value commodity group, own and cross-price elasticities of mode choice probabilities vary considerably, being shipping probabilities more sensitive than road transport to changes in costs (iv) For the relatively high-value goods, effective road-shipping competition only exists in the very long-haul markets. Own and cross-time elasticities are also found to vary significantly. However, shipping own-time elasticity is larger than the shipping-road cross-time one for both commodities, and hence, short-sea shipping (SSS) depends on its own ability to minimise transit time in order to achieve modal shifts.
KEYWORDS
Mode choice, modal split, logit model,
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