A disaggregate Box-Cox Logit mode choice model of intercity passenger travel in Germany and its implications for high-speed rail demand forecasts

We show that enriching logit mode choice model specification by mode attributes, socio economic variables and trip purpose characteristics significantly improves model quality, and that Box-Cox transformations applied to model attributes imply an asymmetry of the reaction curve, as well as more reasonable properties (diminishing marginal values of time savings, elasticities and values of time that differ among the modes) than those of the linear logit model. Moreover, the model yielded very different high speed rail market shares for Germany than results obtained with the usual linear utility functions. <!--ID="" Acknowledgments. This work is based on research directly financed by the German Ministry of Transportation and benefited indirectly from Marc Gaudry`s tenure as a 1990 Alexander von Humboldt research prize awardee, as well as from Transport Canada and from National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada funding.-->