How much is your daily commute? Developing a working model to estimate the total travel cost

When evaluating travel costs, most commuters only consider user or financial costs. For example, if passengers commute by public transport they usually only consider the fare or if travelling by car they usually only consider the fuel and road toll costs. However, there are additional costs that commuters typically ignore which have social and environmental impacts. Policy makers want to know the whole spectrum of costs for assessing accessibility and planning public transport provision. To quantify all costs involved in a trip, we have developed a commuter cost model which estimates all trip costs including economic costs not normally considered by commuters such as travel time, maintenance and operating costs, infrastructure provision costs, health benefits and externalities (congestion, greenhouse gas emissions and accident costs). These costs are categorised as internal (user) costs, service provision (agency) resource costs and external (society) costs. The cost model detailed in this paper is based on a trip database which consists of a matrix of the 100 highest patronage stations in the Sydney Trains network for 5 modes: train, bus, car, cycle and walk. Trip data such as distance, travel time, fare and toll have been collected for each Origin-Destination pair. The user can select the origin, destination, time period and, for a car trip, whether a tolled or untolled road is used. The relevant trip cost components are then determined for each mode type to calculate the total cost of a journey. The model can be used as a tool for policy makers in transport planning and provision. The model also compares trip cost components of different modes, allowing commuters and other users to make an informed decision when selecting the transport mode, in turn creating awareness of the broader impacts of their travel choices not only on themselves but also on society.

• Record URL:
  http://atrf.info/papers/2016/index.aspx
• Authors:
  • Liew, N
  • Chu, J
• Conference:
  • Australasian Transport Research Forum (ATRF), 38th, 2016, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
• Publication Date: 2016-11

Language

• English

Media Info

• Pagination: 13p
• Monograph Title: 38th Australasian Transport Research Forum (ATRF 2016), Melbourne, 16th - 18th November 2016

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Costs; Economics; Modal split; Mode choice; Time; Travel behavior; Value of time; Work trips
• Uncontrolled Terms: Transport costs; Willingness to pay
• Geographic Terms: Australia; Sydney (Australia)
• ATRI Terms: Journey to work; Modal choice; Transport costs; Transport economics; Travel behaviour; Value of time; Willingness to pay
• Subject Areas: Economics; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01627408
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: ARRB
• Files: ITRD, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 27 2017 10:06AM