Investigating the distribution of the value of travel time savings

Mogens Fosgerau

Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, 2006, vol. 40, issue 8, 688-707

Abstract: The distribution of the value of travel time savings (VTTS) is investigated employing various nonparametric techniques to a large dataset originating from a stated choice experiment. The data contain choices between a fast and more expensive alternative and a slow and less expensive alternative. Increasing the implicit price of time leads to an increased share of respondents who decline to pay to save time. But a significant proportion of respondents, 13%, remain willing to pay to save time at the highest price of time in the design. This means that the right tail of the VTTS distribution is not observed and hence the mean VTTS cannot be evaluated without additional assumptions. When socio-economic and situational variables are introduced into a semiparametric model it becomes possible to accept that the whole VTTS distribution is observed. Sixteen candidates for parametric VTTS distributions are investigated. Some distributions are simply not able to fit to the empirical distribution while others have very long tails. The mean VTTS is shown to be extremely dependent on the choice of parametric distribution. Requiring that the parametric distribution should be accepted against the nonparametric alternative narrows the field down to five candidates. One of the distributions tested here has also support within the observed range such that the estimated VTTS is bounded by the data.

Date: 2006
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (104)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191-2615(05)00107-4
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:transb:v:40:y:2006:i:8:p:688-707

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
https://shop.elsevie ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

Access Statistics for this article

Transportation Research Part B: Methodological is currently edited by Fred Mannering

More articles in Transportation Research Part B: Methodological from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().