Value of time

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This article is about monetary valuation of time. For discounted present value, see time value of money.

In transport economics, the value of time is the opportunity cost of the time that a traveller spends on their journey. In essence, this makes it the amount that a traveller would be willing to pay in order to save time, or the amount they would accept as compensation for lost time.

One of the main justifications for transport improvements is the amount of time that travellers will save. Using a set of values of time, the economic benefits of a transport project can be quantified in order to compare them to the costs (thus forming the basis of cost-benefit analysis). In particular, savings (or, for that matter, increases) in travel time form part of the change in consumer surplus for a transport project.

Values of time are used to calculate the non-monetary costs incurred as part of a journey, so that the generalised cost of the journey (a combination of both monetary and non-monetary costs) can be calculated.

The value of time varies considerably from person to person and depends upon the purpose of the journey, but can generally be divided into two sets of valuations: working time and non-working time. This division is appropriate because the value of working time (i.e. time spent travelling in the course of work) is calculated differently from the value of non-working time (i.e. time spent travelling outside work).

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[edit] Working time

Working time is subject to the forces of the labour market, and can thus be valued in a relatively straightforward manner. The value of working time is the opportunity cost of that time to the employer, which is generally equivalent to the wages of the worker.

For example, if a worker on a salary of £20 per hour travels to a meeting, the value of time in that case is £20 per hour, because that is the amount the employer would be willing to pay to reduce travel time (as travel time can be considered to be "wasted", i.e. not spent working).

In practice, time spent travelling on certain modes (e.g. train) can sometimes be used to carry out some work, whereas time spent using other modes (e.g. car) may not be available at all, so the value of time may not exactly match up with the salary of the traveller - for example, if the £15/hour employee could carry on doing some work on a train journey to the meeting, but couldn't do so if they drove there, then the value of time on the train journey might be lower, as the employer is less willing to pay to save time on that mode.

The UK Department for Transport calculates average values of time for travel on various modes of transport so that these values can be used to appraise transport projects as part of its New Approach to Appraisal [1]. Some examples are given below in 2002 prices:

  • Car drivers: £26.43 per hour
  • Car passengers: £18.94 per hour
  • Bus passengers: £20.22 per hour
  • Rail passengers: £36.96 per hour*
  • Underground passengers: £35.95 per hour*
  • Walkers: £29.64 per hour
  • Cyclists: £17.00 per hour

/* Skewed by London wages

[edit] Non working time

This is time spent outside work, which might include journeys to and from work and leisure journeys. Since this time is not valued in a market, it can only be estimated from revealed preference or stated preference analysis techniques, where the real or hypothetical choices of travellers between faster, more expensive modes and slower, cheaper modes can be examined.

For example, if a traveller has a choice between a coach which takes six hours and costs £10, or a train which takes four hours and costs £30, we can deduce that if the traveller chooses the train, their value of time is £10 per hour or more (because they are willing to spend at least £20 to save two hours' travel time).

The difficulty in narrowing down the actual value of time from a pair of choices means that hypothetical situations are generally used (the stated preference technique) to deduce values of time.

The value of non-working time is linked strongly to utility theory.

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