Road Capacity and the Allocation of Time

David Levinson and Seshasai Kanchi

No 200203, Working Papers from University of Minnesota: Nexus Research Group

Abstract: Additional highway capacity, by increasing travel speed, affects the individual share of time within a 24-hour budget allocated to various activities (time spent at and traveling to home, shop, work and other). Some activities will be undertaken more, others less. This paper extends previous research that identified and quantified induced demand in terms of vehicle miles traveled, by considering what type of demand is induced and which activities are consequently reduced, using the 1990 and 1995 Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey and Federal Highway Administration highway statistics data. While total travel times have not seen any significant change between the years 1990 and 1995, there is a significant change in activity durations. Further, as a result of additional capacity, workers spend less time traveling. Workers also spend more time at home and other activities and less at work and shop. Non-workers, in contrast, travel more, and spend more time shopping and at home, but less time at other activities. This points out the differences in discretionary and non-discretionary activities for workers and non-workers. It also suggests that there are real gains from capacity in people's lives, at least in the short term, as it is time, and not VMT, that individuals base decisions on.

Keywords: Time Use; Travel Behavior; Activity Patterns; Roadway Capacity; Induced Demand. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D10 R40 R41 R48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2002
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Published in Journal of Transportation and Statistics 5(1) pp 25-46.

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/11299/179893 First version, 2007 (application/pdf)

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:nex:wpaper:roadcapacity

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from University of Minnesota: Nexus Research Group Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by David Levinson ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).