THE VALUE OF AUTOMOBILE TRAVEL-TIME - IMPLICATIONS FOR CONGESTION POLICY

Public policy has remained stoutly resistant to the economic professio n's call to use congestion tolls to minimize the social costs from aut omobile congestion. This paper explores this issue by using stated pre ference models to estimate the value that commuters are willing to pay to save travel time. We find that this value is low and surprisingly insensitive to travel conditions and how toll revenues are used. It ap pears that even high-income commuters, having adjusted to congestion t hrough their modal, residential, workplace, and departure time choices , simply do not value travel time savings enough to benefit substantia lly from tolls. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science S.A.