Concepts of Price Elasticities of Transport Demand and Recent Empirical Estimates: An Interpretative Survey

The past two decades have seen several refinements to the theory and empirical estimation of transport demand. Among major developments are the advancements in discrete choice modelling and the associated computational algorithms, the increasing popularity of flexible functional forms, and a better linkage between empirical demand models and the theory of consumer or firm behaviour. In recognition of these and other advances in transport demand research, this paper surveys the major empirical studies of own-price elasticities of demand for transport that emerged in the last ten years or so. In the process, various concepts of and linkages between demand elasticities are outlined. Some shortcomings of existing empirical studies are also discussed.