Valuing Travel Time and Reliability from Emerging Connected Vehicle Data

Sep 03, 2025

Recently published:

Mann, Isaac and Levinson, David (2025) Valuing Travel Time and Reliability from Emerging Connected Vehicle Data. Economics of Transportation. Volume 44, December 2025, 100427 [doi]

The Value of Travel Time (VTT) is the most significant economic parameter in contemporary Cost-Benefit Analysis. Alongside the Value of Travel Reliability (VTR), these metrics provide critical insights into travel behaviour. Our study employs connected vehicle data paired with Sydney’s extensive toll road network to introduce a novel approach to valuing travel time and reliability. Toll road decisions reflect the highly visible time-money trade-off travellers make to avoid congestion, and while the of toll roads to infer VTT is well established in transport economics, a network-wide approach incorporating passive Revealed Preference (RP) data has not yet been explored. We design choice sets using methods termed route ‘observation’ and ‘generation’, and estimate VTT and VTR using mixed-path size logit modelling. Our findings align closely with official estimates used in project appraisal, and set the stage for panel RP approaches to time valuation as connected vehicles occupy more of the vehicle fleet.
Key Words: Transport Appraisal, Mixed Logit, Value of Travel Time, Value of Travel Reliability, Connected Vehicles

Figure 4: Route observation (top) and route generation (bottom) methods compared. The route ob- servation method defines isodistance zones around the trip’s start and end points. Alternate routes travelling between these zones constitute the route set, which includes both tolled and untolled routes. In contrast, the route generation method specifies alternative routes that originate and terminate at the exact same locations as the observed trip; however, these alternative routes may differ from those observed in the connected vehicle data. — Figure 4: Route observation (top) and route generation (bottom) methods compared. The route observation method defines isodistance zones around the trip’s start and end points. Alternate routes travelling between these zones constitute the route set, which includes both tolled and untolled routes. In contrast, the route generation method specifies alternative routes that originate and terminate at the exact same locations as the observed trip; however, these alternative routes may differ from those observed in the connected vehicle data.