Da. Hensher, The valuation of commuter travel time savings for car drivers: evaluating alternative model specifications, TRANSPORTAT, 28(2), 2001, pp. 101-118
Citations number
21
Categorie Soggetti
Politucal Science & public Administration","Civil Engineering
The empirical valuation of travel time savings is a derivative of the ratio
of parameter estimates in a discrete choice model. The most common formula
tion (multinomial logit) imposes strong restrictions on the profile of the
unobserved influences on choice as represented by the random component of a
preference function. As we progress our ability to relax these restriction
s we open up opportunities to benchmark the values derived from simple (alb
eit relatively restrictive) models. In this paper we contrast the values of
travel time savings derived from multinomial logit and alternative specifi
cations of mixed (or random parameter) logit models. The empirical setting
is urban car commuting in six locations in New Zealand. The evidence sugges
ts that less restrictive choice model specifications tend to produce higher
estimates of values of time savings compared to the multinomial logit mode
l; however the degree of under-estimation of multinomial logit remains quit
e variable, depending on the context.