Supposing that the traveler

is rational and sensitive to the trip utility, alternative i is chosen if and only if β0 + β1ti + β2ci > β0 + β1tj + β2cj (i ≠ j). According to the definition of the VTTS, if an individual prefers alternative i to alternative j, then his/her VTTS satisfies VTTS^=β1β2Sunitinib price VTTS; cj is travel time for alternative j, CNY; tj is travel time for alternative j, minute. Therefore, according to economic consumer theory [15], if the ratio of travel cost savings with travel time savings is higher than Δc/Δt (Δc/Δt ≥ 0 is required; otherwise, the corresponding interviewee is supposed to not care about travel time and the data will be discarded) the traveler will give up choosing the passenger car as the trip mode; that is, alternative mode (a slower and less expensive mode) will be chosen. In this point, Δc/Δt is the boundary of willingness-to-pay and can be taken

as the willingness-to-acceptance (WTA) [16, 17]. Therefore, WTA is defined and calculated as follows: WTA=cj−citi−tj=ΔcΔt. (3) Although WTA is not the true value of travel time savings, it reflects the information of how much the traveler is willing to pay in order to reduce the travel time. In this point, WTA can be used to describe the characteristics of VTTS and the behavior of individual’s trip mode choice. Furthermore, WTA has an advantage over VTTS that VTTS is estimated

rather than measured directly while WTA can be measured directly [16]. For these reasons, WTA is analyzed in this paper and is used to explore the character of VTTS. 4. Variability of WTA 4.1. Effect of Trip Purpose The surveyed data are classified into different groups according to trip purposes and only three kinds of trip (commuting, shopping, and leisure trips) data are analyzed. Table 1 summarizes WTA for these three trip purposes. The median values of WTA for commuting, shopping, and leisure are 80.3, 85.3, and 104.8CNY, respectively. It can be inferred that there are no differences in the median values of WTA for commuting and shopping. However the median values of WTA for leisure are much higher than those for commuting and shopping. Also, from the upper bound of 95% confidence for WTA, it is easily concluded Dacomitinib that, for the shopping and leisure trips, the travelers are willing to pay more to save the travel time. This finding is contrary to the conclusion of most literatures [9, 11] that the VTTS for leisure is less than the value for commuting which may be due to the strict requirement of arriving in workplace on time. However, in China, the travelers whose trip purposes are shopping or leisure pay more attention to the trip attributes (such as comfort and convenience), especially for those who are accustomed to travelling with family by passenger cars.