The Value of Time Spent in Travelling: Some New Evidence

Abstract

The valuation of time spent in travelling is important because, first, it has been prominent in studies of the value of investments in roads, a form of analysis recently extended to urban rail transport. In the M.1 motorway study, for example, time savings accounted for 64 per cent. of the measured gross benefits at the first year of operation, when the working time was valued at the lowest end of the range 2s. Od. to lOs. Od. an hour which was considered possible (1957 prices). At lOs. Od. an hour, the proportion was 78 per cent.2 In a study of the Victoria underground railway line, with savings in working time valued at 7s. Od. an hour, and in non-working time (i.e. the vast bulk of the savings in this case) at 5s. Od. an hour (1962 prices), time savings accounted for about 80 per cent. of total benefits at the first year of operation.3 Similarly, the recent Report of the Panel on Road Pricing estimated that the initial annual savings from a nation-wide system of metering vehicles in congested areas would be between ?100 and ?150 million a year.4 Nearly 90 per cent. of these5 come from time savings; of time savings, about 60 per cent. were time savings other than in working time. The evidence to be described later throws doubt on these assumptions about the valuation of non-working time. Second, time spent in travelling is, by definition, time spent on a mode or modes of transport. The relative valuation of time by mode is crucial for predictions of numbers of travellers using each mode, and