The influence of waiting time on the value of headway time on a ferry service in Norway

Abstract The value of headway time is travellers willingness to pay for a reduction in the length of the time intervals between departures on public transport services. As such, it is an important number when departure frequencies on such services are determined. Because waiting, according to the literature, gives rise to the emotions of anger and uncertainty it can be assumed that waiting time influences travellers willingness to pay for reduced headway. As such, it is the aim of this study to investigate the relationship between respondents waiting time at ferry terminals and their willingness to pay for reduced headway. The main finding is that the value of headway increases concavely with waiting time. That is, a marginal change in waiting time influences the valuation of headway positively. However, the effect is diminishing. This result implies that, all else equal, the welfare effect of reducing the length of the time interval between departures is greater on services with a long average waiting time than on those where the average waiting time is short.