The German value of time and value of reliability study: the survey work

Abstract

In 2012 Germany’s Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) initiated several projects in preparation of the new Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan (BVWP) 2030. This included an update of the general methodology and in particular of its cost–benefit analysis which is used to evaluate the effects of hundreds of German infrastructure projects under study. As part of the work the first official values of time (VOT) and values of reliability (VOR) for personal and business travel for Germany derived from a stated preference survey were estimated. From May 2012 until January 2013 nationwide data of more than 3000 participants was collected in a combined two-stage revealed and stated preference survey. This paper discusses the survey design, reports experience of the field phase and analyses the response behaviour of the sample. The stated choice experiments address mode, route, time of departure, workplace and residential location choice. The complex multi-attribute experiments of different types cover various aspects of short and long-term travel choice attributes which the respondent has to take into consideration during his decision process. Furthermore overlapping variables of the stated and revealed preference experiments enabled a joint estimation of the whole data for deriving the VOTs and VORs. Additionally numerous socio-demographic and attitudinal questions plus the large sample size for business and non-business trips make it a unique dataset offering various aspects of travel behaviour and their valuations to explore.