Estimation of Value of Travel Time for Work Trips

Abstract

Value of travel time (VOT) is one of the key inputs to travel demand models and is important for management and appraisal of transport investment decisions. The value of travel time can be defined as the price people are willing to pay to acquire an additional unit of time. Value of travel time has most often been determined by estimating mode choice models and evaluating marginal rate of substitution between the cost and travel time of the alternative modes. This study is aimed to find out the value of travel time associated with work trips of travellers within Calicut city. It refers to the concept of willingness to pay for reduction of travel time. Data were collected by means of combined revealed - stated preference survey on representative sample of population in Calicut city by work place interview. Stated preference experiment was designed to capture the responses for estimating VOT values for work trips. Responses in the form of "choice" among the presented choice alternatives were utilized to develop utility models and the estimated coefficients from the developed models were used to estimate VOT measures. The results indicate that the VOT associated with work trips is higher in high income groups. As income increases VOT also increases. Similarly, trip length also has a positive influence on VOT. As trip length increases, VOT increases. Within the same trip length itself, VOT varies among different income groups.