Empirical evidence confirms this hypothesis. The highest value was double the lowest. Time savings for individuals attracted to an improved mode should be valued at the rate appropriate to the mode from which they are transferring. Recent studies of value of time savings for freight vehicles in the US, UK, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Netherlands, France and Germany have been of two broad types. The stated preference method involves carefully customized studies of shippers choice, and might be expected to pick up additional, more subtle, sources of value such as the possibility of restructuring logistic systems as transport performance improves.
Empirical results tend to confirm that expectation.
SP values for road haulage in Sweden and for rail freight in both the US and UK, all of which related mainly to long distance bulk transport, gave much lower values. In most Bank client countries there is inadequate evidence to substantiate the adoption of the higher values. It is therefore recommended that, in the absence of local evidence, the value of freight vehicle travel times should by calculated on the factor cost basis. Bus and coach traffic Bus and coach time savings can also be valued in the same two basic ways as freight traffic. As for freight, it is recommended that values of time savings per vehicle be compiled by summing savings of time variable operating costs, including the drivers time, and the value of passengers travel time savings.