Analysing rail travellers' desire for reducing carbon emissions from personal travel

Rail is generally regarded to be more environmentally friendly than other forms of transport. Indeed, it is hypothesised that at least a small proportion of rail trips are made due to the relative environmental benefits of rail over competing modes. This paper reports on a recent study carried out in the United Kingdom which surveyed over 3,000 rail users, asking a series of questions to investigate baseline understandings of environmental issues as they relate to rail travel and the extent to which rail demand is currently influenced by environmental concerns. The study then investigates respondent’s desire for reducing carbon emissions by fitting discrete choice models to data collected through a stated preference survey. The study highlights important variations across the population in their valuations of reductions in carbon emissions. Crucially, these variations retrieved in the modelling analysis align very closely with the environmental attitudes retrieved in earlier stages of the survey.