Road traffic noise and nature recreation choices - a combined revealed preference and stated preference analysis

The experience of silence constitutes a significant part of the enjoyment derived from nature recreation. However, economic valuation of noise is underexplored in the context of recreation. Combining RP data from a multiple site travel cost survey with SP data from a discrete choice experiment survey, we estimate joint RP-SP models to examine the impact of road traffic noise on open-access nature recreation choices. When estimating separate RP and SP models, we find significant differences in willingness-to-pay (WTP) estimates for avoiding traffic noise in the two datasets. We also find a significantly lower relative scale parameter in the SP data compared to the RP data; however, the difference in WTP cannot be fully explained by the difference in error variance between the two data sets. Informed by both datasets, the joint RP-SP model provides intermediate WTP estimates, and in particular for high noise levels, better estimation precision. Specifically, we find that the per trip WTP to avoid high noise levels is at least an order of magnitude higher in the RP-SP model than in the RP model alone.