A review of British evidence on time and service quality valuations

A large amount of evidence has been amassed in Great Britain on the values of time and a wide range of service quality attributes. This paper reports meta-analysis of a large number of valuations of these attributes, including in-vehicle time, walk time, wait time, service headway, interchange, departure time adjustments, search time, late time and time spent in congested traffic conditions. This analysis yields insights into methodological issues, supports the appraisal of widely used conventions, can be used to provide estimated valuations for situations where none exist, and allows the assessment of particular findings against a large body of empirical evidence. The research findings challenge several conventions and provide a number of practical recommendations regarding the valuations of time and service quality to use in appraisal and areas for future research. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.