Route Choice and the Value of Motorists’ Travel Time: Empirical Findings

This paper contains the empirical findings from a study of motorists' route choices. The purpose of this study was to estimate the value that motorists' place upon time savings when making urban journeys. Revealed preference models of travel behaviour are develaped for commuting and leisure journeys and a stated preference experiment is undertaken for these two journey plrposes and additionally for those making journeys in the course of their work. Although the stated preference method is seen to have several advantages over the revealed preference approach in this route choice context; there is the crucial question of whether stated preferences correspond with actual preferences. Various revealed preference and stated preference models of travel behaviour are presented and the results obtained by the two methods are compared in a variety of ways. The findings of these comparisons suggest that stated preferences are an accurate reflection of actual preferences and that such data can be usefully employed for the purpose of valuing travel time savings.

A feature of the study is an investigation into how the value of time varies with socio-economic factors. A method for analysing variations in the value of time due to socio-economic variables is outlined and successfully applied to reveal a number of factors influencing the value of time. A comparison of reported and engineering values was also undertaken which suggests that there is misreporting of attribute values.