Citizen's preferences for town centre traffic restrictions: a conjoint analysis experiment.

Abstract

The paper reports on a conjoint analysis experiment aimed at helping town administrators to make efficient, distributionally- aware and politically acceptable decisions on town centres' traffic restrictions. An adaptive conjoint exercise had been administered to a small group of Balloon 's citizens, a small town of Veneto, an Italian region. A commercial software (ACA) had been used to perform the interviews. ACA provides individual utility estimates allowing the analyst to perform the desired segmentation analysis. Notwithstanding the sample size, the experiment provided plausible and informative results. Utilities, computed both as average results and by sample segments, show the strong concern across all sample segments for pollution (environmental quality) and the desire for improved public transport services (increased bus frequency). On average there is a preference for flexible traffic restrictions and moderate hourly parking fees.