Chapter 34: Value of Freight Travel-Time Savings

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 cost (also see Chapters 18 and 26). On the other hand, the value of travel-time savings (VTTS) 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 chapter will deal with the value of freight travel-time savings (as opposed to time losses). In many cost-benefit analyses, the main benefits from the infrastructure project are the time savings, both for passengers and freight transport.