Valuation of travel time for international long-distance travel – results from the Fehmarn Belt stated choice experiment

Abstract

The geographical scope of travel varies from short distances in urban areas to long distances across cities and countries. While urban travel has been widely analysed in the literature, travel over longer distances and particularly across countries, has received much less attention. While this may be justified due to the number of travellers it cannot be justified when looking at the mileage consumption and its resulting environmental impacts. In this paper, we investigate international long-distance travel preferences related to travel between Scandinavia and Central Europe with particular focus on the Fehmarn Belt fixed link between Germany and Denmark to be opened in 2021. To facilitate long-term demand forecasts for the future fixed link, stated preference data were collected in 2011. Based on these data a discrete choice model for long-distance travellers was developed in order to estimate the value of travel time savings (VTTS). The final model, which was formulated as a nested logit model and included Box–Cox transformed travel time and cost attributes, revealed several interesting findings. Firstly, we found damping effects in both cost and time – most strongly in cost. Secondly, we found significant interactions among travel cost and time, and journey characteristics, such as distance and duration. This had direct impact on the VTTS, which was shown to decrease with distance and duration. Thirdly, we found that air travel implies a higher average VTTS, which is to be expected but rarely supported by empirical evidence.