Consumer Benefits and Demand Impacts of Regular Train Timetables

This paper reports novel research into the benefits that rail travellers receive from more regular features of timetables over and above any benefits of improved frequency. A Stated Preference (SP) exercise amongst rail travellers was conducted to estimate these benefits and the generally plausible results have been used to enhance a rail demand model which in turn has been used to forecast the effect on demand of more regular timetables for a range of situations. Not surprisingly, the demand impacts are generally relatively small, although they would be welcome additional benefits in the evaluation of a regular timetable.