The Economics of Travel: It’s Not the Destination, It’s the Journey

Abstract

This chapter lays out the conventional economic understanding of travel, whereby travel is calculated merely as a derived demand, and challenges this approach from a number of perspectives. The chapter shows the need to calculate the intrinsic value of the experience of travel itself especially in the light of the ability to do other things during travel ranging from working on trains to the sheer enjoyment of watching the scenery go by. The authors look at how more recent understandings of our instinctive need to travel are being considered in economic valuations, the behavioural economic approach to understanding travel behaviours, as well how to account for the economic costs of travel, such as its contribution to climate change. The latter approach clearly challenges the emphasis on the value of reductions in travel time as the prime focus when calculating benefits and making ensuing investment decisions.