How do travellers value their travel time? A study-case for the Madrid-Barcelona corridor

0 0 1 476 2618 Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria 21 6 3088 14.0 Normal 0 21 false false false ES-TRAD JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Tabla normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Transport infrastructure projects require an ex-ante evaluation before compromising substantial public funds. In this sense, travel time savings are one of the most important sources of benefits arising from the implementation of such projects. This paper studies travel behaviour in the Madrid-Barcelona corridor. This route links the two most important cities in Spain and is one of the densest airline domestic markets in the world, with near 5 million passengers per year. In 2008, the introduction of the new High Speed Rail (HSR) produced substantial improvements in the level of service for the rail alternative, achieving reductions in travel time of more than 50% over the conventional train. Using data from a detailed revealed preference (RP) survey we obtained estimates for the value of time of the main public transport modes operating in the Madrid-Barcelona corridor, considering the different components integrating the total travel time, that is, access and egress time, waiting time and in-vehicle travel. The analysis applied advanced modelling techniques, based on the estimation of flexible discrete choice models using an RP dataset providing information about the current behaviour of travellers between Madrid and Barcelona. The utilities of the various alternatives available were defined in terms of their main level-of-service attributes and some socioeconomic characteristics of the travellers. Our specification searches revealed the existence of systematic and random taste variations in the users' utility functions by the various transport modes in the corridor. From these estimated results, willingness-to-pay values for saving the different time components were derived. These values were larger for the air transport alternative than for the other modes. We also found, as usual, that travellers appear to be willing to pay more for reducing waiting time and access/egress time than travel time. Our study set out methodological grounds that can serve as a reference guide for quantifying the time savings derived from other projects in Spain. Although the ideal situation should be that each project is associated with a detailed behavioural demand study, sometimes it may prove more convenient (or a necessity) to transfer methods and models when conditions are similar, or to adapt them using some heuristics appropriate for the particular case study. In this sense, this research provides not only appropriate figures for the values of different time components for different transport modes, by different purpose, and for individuals with different socioeconomic profiles, but it also represents a methodological reference guide for the application of this approach in future studies. Moreover and more importantly, this work represents a novel research approach for Spain and a useful contribution to the literature on the value of time within the context of the European Union, where a general goal of transport policy is the development of pricing systems, including marginal social costs, to achieve a more rational use of the transport system.