Value of Time in Freight Transport in Finland

Abstract

In the socioeconomic evaluation of transportation investments affecting freight transport in Finland, no value of time is currently attributable to the freight itself. In order to estimate freight-specific values of time for road and rail transport, two separate studies using the same methodology were carried out. Stated preference technique—in which hypothetical choice situations between two road or rail transport alternatives were presented to transport managers in manufacturing companies in Finland—was used. Values of the attributes presented were based on the present transport in question. Level of service was characterized by three variables: transport time, transport cost, and reliability of the service (frequency and duration of unexpected delays). Personal interviews were carried out using a portable computer. The relative importance of the factors (i.e., values of transport time and delays) was derived from logit models. According to the survey, the average value of time for road transport for the selected commodity groups is about $1.5 per metric ton per hour, and the value of average delay is about $47 per metric ton per hour. For rail transport and different commodity groups, the average value of transport time is about $0.10, and the value of average delay is about $0.5 per metric ton per hour. These results stress the importance of the reliability of transport time. The values of transport time were considerably higher than those in the corresponding Swedish studies but lower than the values in several other studies.