STATED PREFERENCE INVESTIGATION OF INFLUENCES ON ATTRACTIVENESS OF RESIDENTIAL LOCATIONS

A stated preference experiment concerning residential location choice was conducted in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Each respondent was asked to indicate an order of preference for a set of hypothetical residential location alternatives. Each alternative was described by specifying a monthly charge, number of bedrooms, travel time to work, travel time to a shopping center, and proximity to light rail transit (LRT). This placed the respondent in a situation in which it was necessary to trade off between better or worse conditions regarding these attributes. Information was also collected on actual home location, actual workplace location (if the respondent was employed), family size, and total household income. The set of observations thus obtained was used to estimate the coefficients for various alternate utility functions in logit models of this choice behavior. All of the attributes were found to have statistically significant effects on the attractiveness of residential locations. Specific findings were that travel time to work is worth approximately 25 Canadian dollars (C$25) per hour, travel time to work is about two times as important as travel time to shop, an additional bedroom is equivalent to approximately C$155 per month, and being within walking distance of an LRT station is worth about C$217 per month. Both household income and family size were found to have significant influences. These results provide empirical evidence that the transport system influences the attractiveness of residential locations. They also contribute to further understanding of this aspect of urban system behavior in Calgary and demonstrate the potential for this process to be used elsewhere. Also included is a table providing an extensive summary of the factors considered in the literature on residential location choice.