Walkability Policies in Developing Countries: What Do People Need and Prefer in Iran?

Abstract

Examining the willingness to pay (WTP) in the implementation of walkability policies can indicate the needs and preferences of individuals. Consequently, better defined individual preferences lead to successful sustainable transportation plans. While there is an extensive literature discussing WTP in sustainable transportation, they mostly focus on developed countries, and this issue has not been adequately studied for developing countries, especially the Middle East. This study aims to determine the preferences of transportation users in developing countries and their willingness in paying to implement sustainable transportation policies. To this aim, 384 surveys were conducted in Karaj city, Iran, using the contingent valuation method (CVM). The WTP and its contextual criteria (household’s cost, demography, and economic class) and walkability criteria (safety, accessibility, network design, and social) were examined using PLS-SEM with 1000 resamples through the SEMinR package in the R programming language. The results show that 46% of participants were willing to pay extra taxes to implement the walkability policies. Furthermore, the structural model indicates that safety, social, spatial, and accessibility are the most important factors, respectively, and predict WTP in a positive direction. In contrast, gender and cost predict WTP in a negative direction.