VALUE OF FREIGHT TRAVEL-TIME SAVINGS. IN: HANDBOOK OF TRANSPORT MODELLING

The value of freight travel time is mainly used for two different purposes. On the one hand, it is an input into the cost-benefit analysis of infrastructure projects, facilitating the comparison of the time savings for freight, as caused by the project, against other attributes, such as the investment dost. On the other hand, the value of time savings in freight transport is also used in traffic forecasting models, in which one of the explanatory variables is a linear combination of travel time and cost, called generalized cost. This paper deals with the values of freight travel-time savings. In many cost-benefit analyses, the main benefits from the infrastructure project are the timesavings, both for passengers and for freight. Unlike the passenger VTTS, which is often expressed in terms of money units per minute, the freight VTTS is practically always expressed in terms of money units per hour. This difference is because of the longer average transport times in freight transport, which result from longer distance, but also from lower average speeds compared to passenger transport. Other differences between passenger and freight transport, which are relevant to VTTS research are described in this paper.