Highway User Travel Time Evaluation
Publication: Journal of Transportation Engineering
Volume 133, Issue 12
Abstract
Improved highway networks result in net benefits to society, of which the reduction in travel time is one of the most important. Similarly, the delay in travel due to construction and maintenance operations represents a real cost to users. Assignment of the value of time in the cases of both benefit and cost involves judgment, as individuals value time differently and adjust for travel time changes in various ways. Values based on wage rates traditionally have been used because they are convenient, but an alternative approach based on purchase of leisure time is proposed. A full life-cycle cost assessment of a project requires an evaluation of future savings in travel time projected over a project’s lifetime, as well as delay costs associated with construction and subsequent maintenance operations. Due to the economic, as well as social complexity of user travel time, alternative measures of valuation and its network effects need to be considered.
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Acknowledgments
The writer would like to extend sincere thanks to Adam Trzcinski, who did much of the research in finding wage rates and for uncovering references for current methodology in user time evaluation, and to Douglas Gransberg, for material related to discounting. The assistance of Richard Bauman of the Northwest Parkway Facility in Colorado and of Jake Kononov of the Colorado Department of Transportation is also gratefully acknowledged.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Transportation Engineering
Volume 133 • Issue 12 • December 2007
Pages: 663 - 669
Copyright
© 2007 ASCE.
History
Received: Oct 16, 2006
Accepted: Jul 2, 2007
Published online: Dec 1, 2007
Published in print: Dec 2007
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