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Adler, MartinW., Liberini, F., Russo, A. and van Ommeren, JosN. (2021). The congestion relief benefit of public transit: Evidence from Rome Journal of Economic Geography, 21(3):397--431.


  • Journal
    Journal of Economic Geography

We estimate the effect of public transport supply on travel times of motor-vehicle and bus users in Rome, Italy. We apply a quasi-experimental methodology exploiting hourly information on public transport service reductions during strikes. We find that a 10-percentage point reduction in public transit supply increases the travel time of motor-vehicles by about 1.6% in the morning peak. The effect on bus travel time is similar. The congestion-relief benefit of public transport is thus sizeable and bus travel time gains account for an important share of it.