Heterogeneous preferences for rural road investments and willingness to contribute

Rural road plays a crucial role in improving market access, labour mobility, and public service delivery in remote regions. However, limited evidence exists on how rural residents evaluate alternative road investment designs and how household characteristics shape their preferences. This study investigates rural residents’ preferences for road development using a discrete choice experiment conducted in Inner Mongolia, China. The experiment presented respondents with hypothetical road investment scenarios characterized by variations in road quality, maintenance obligations, financing arrangements, construction employment opportunities, travel time reduction, expected income impacts, and household costs. The results show that improvements in road quality and reductions in travel time significantly increase the probability that a project is selected, highlighting the importance of accessibility improvements for rural households. In contrast, institutional features such as financing arrangements and projected income gains exert comparatively weaker influence on decision-making. The estimates further reveal heterogeneity in preferences for high-quality road upgrades and connectivity improvements. Willingness-to-pay estimates indicate that households place considerable value on substantial improvements in road quality but assign relatively modest value to subsidy incentives or financing mechanisms. These findings suggest that participatory planning and flexible infrastructure design may be necessary to better align rural road investments with heterogeneous local preferences.