Valuing travel time and reliability from emerging connected vehicle data

Abstract

The value of travel time and reliability are significant economic parameters in canonical transport Cost–Benefit Analysis. Our study employs connected vehicle data paired with Sydney, Australia’s, extensive toll road network to introduce a novel approach to valuing these metrics. Toll uptake makes the time–money trade-off explicit: travellers pay to avoid congestion. While toll choices have long been used to infer time valuation, a network-wide approach incorporating passive revealed preferences has not yet been explored. We design choice sets using methods termed route ‘observation’ and ‘generation’, and estimate time and reliability valuations using mixed-path size logit. Our findings align closely with official estimates used in project appraisal, and set the stage for panel revealed preference studies as connected vehicles occupy more of the vehicle fleet.