Travellers’ valuation of sitting and standing positions in crowded metros and trains

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened the need to better understand travellers’ preferences for reduced crowding in public transport. Using panel data from repeated choice experiments with a large sample of Norwegian metro and train users during and after the pandemic, we investigate how the marginal valuation of travel time varies depending on crowding levels and passengers’ positions when sitting or standing. Based on mixed logit models and likelihood ratio tests, we find evidence that position does indeed matter: standing close to the door is preferred over other standing positions in the carriage. Regarding COVID-19, we find that crowding costs are lower after the pandemic but cannot reject the hypothesis that this reduction is independent of position. A key novelty of our study lies in the choice card layout, which contributes to the literature on crowding valuation by providing strong evidence that choice card presentations specifying passenger positions yield higher estimated crowding costs compared to variants where position is not specified.