Freight Transport and the Value of Travel Time Savings: A Meta‐analysis of Empirical Studies

Abstract

The value of travel time savings (VTTS) has been investigated by transport economists since the mid‐1960s. Although the first two decades of research were mainly devoted to VTTS in passenger transport, since the mid‐1980s several studies have analysed the VTTS in freight transport from both a theoretical and an empirical viewpoint. The first part of the paper is devoted to a review of the proposed theoretical models for the value of freight travel time savings (VFTTS), and it discusses the issues arising from the use of different methods to collect empirical VFTTS estimates. The second part is based on a meta‐analysis of a sample of empirical VFTTS observations related to several European and North American countries. It is shown that both the per‐capita gross domestic product and the transport mode are statistically significant variables that can partially explain the variability in VFTTS estimates.

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully thank Moshe Givoni (Free University, Amsterdam), Harald Minken (TØI, Oslo) and Knut Sandberg Eriksen (TØI, Oslo) for helpful suggestions on a previous version of this paper. In addition, they would like to thank two anonymous referees for valuable comments. Luca Zamparini acknowledges the financial support of the ‘Fragmentation and Local Development: Interpretative Models and Policy Implications’ PRIN2005 (Italian National Research Project).

Notes

1. The authors thank Robert Paaswell (City College, New York) for this useful suggestion.

2. The Marshallian economic surplus is equal, as far as demand is concerned, to the difference between the amount of money an economic agent is willing to pay in order to purchase a good or a service and the amount he/she actually pays. With regard to the supply side of the market, the surplus is equal to the difference between the amount of money the firm receives and the minimum sum necessary to have it sell the goods.

3. For a brief historical outline of meta‐analysis and of its application to the social sciences, see Zamparini and Reggiani (2007b).

4. Econlit is a search engine for economic papers.

5. The authors thank Harald Minken (TØI, Oslo) for this valuable suggestion.

6. By discarding that observation, the average VFTTS for rail transport would be US$4.03, and the related standard deviation would be 2.75.