Transport and time use: the values of leisure, work and travel

Abstract

In this position paper we argue that transport decisions are intimately linked with the assignment of available time to activities, and that a full understanding of the so-called value of travel time savings (VTTS) requires modeling time use as a whole, in order to disentangle VTTS into the value of liberated time and the value assigned to the conditions of travel. A richer microeconomic framework has emerged from which the values of leisure and work can be empirically estimated, such that the components of VTTS can be calculated as well, which permits to identify correctly the priorities when deciding investments.