The German value of time and reliability study

The Federal Ministry for Transport and Digital Infrastructures (BMVI) is currently preparing its medium- and long-term investment strategy in form of its new Bundesverkehrswegeplan 2015 (BVWP 2015). In this framework the project focussed on the estimation of values of time (VOT) and of reliability (VOR) and a proposal for recommended values for both private passenger travel and as well as business passenger travel. These recommended values will be used in the evaluation of the different investment proposals, which will form the BVWP. The values replace the values of the BVWP 1992, which had been updated but not been verified independently since then. In line with international practice the data collection adopted a two stage approach: in a first step the respondents reported about current trips (revealed preference (RP)), which were then systematically varied to be the basis for the experiments in the hypothetical choice situations (stated preference – SP). The study includes both experiments with a short-term horizon (route, mode, route and departure time), as well as long-term choice (work place and residential location). The experiments were linked through a set of common variables. This allowed us to estimate one joint model including all the short-term experiments. The well-known effect of longer distance or travel times on the time valuations were carefully studied with a series of different model formulations involving interaction terms and non-linear transformations of the variables. The effect of non-linearity was identified in our study as well. The individual business and commercial travel has higher priority in this BVWP. Given that some firms have travel policies we conducted a qualitative study of business decision makers to find out, how tightly controlled route and mode choices are, as tight control would invalidate the results of the SC experiments. The interviews showed that the policies do not bind the travellers in route choices, and for the most part in mode choices either, so that the SC approach is valid. To compare the SC results, we calculated the values with two additional approaches (Hensher 1977, Cost Saving approach), but the respective estimates were not substantially different. The valuation of small time savings is a recurrent issue in the literature. While there is some evidence that they are not perceived in the short-term decision context, the logic of a long-term social and economic valuation does not require this effects inclusion. Additionally, a related literature reports that the parameters of the time variable depend on the absolute size of the time differences offered in the SC experiments. After careful testing, we could not find this effect in our data.

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	Kurzfassung FE-Projekt-Nr. 96.996/2011 Ermittlung von Bewertungsansätzen für Reisezeiten und Zuverlässigkeit auf der Basis eines Modells für modale Verlagerungen im nicht-gewerblichen und gewerblichen Personenverkehr für die Bundesverkehrswegeplanung		not specified	Download (508kB)
	Zusammenfassung FE-Projekt-Nr. 96.996/2011 Ermittlung von Bewertungsansätzen für Reisezeiten und Zuverlässigkeit auf der Basis eines Modells für modale Verlagerungen im nicht-gewerblichen und gewerblichen Personenverkehr für die Bundesverkehrswegeplanung		not specified	Download (568kB)
	Schlussbericht FE-Projekt-Nr. 96.996/2011 Ermittlung von Bewertungsansätzen für Reisezeiten und Zuverlässigkeit auf der Basis eines Modells für modale Verlagerungen im nicht-gewerblichen und gewerblichen Personenverkehr für die Bundesverkehrswegeplanung		not specified	Download (11MB)