the value of motorists' time: a study in italy

in order to take advantage of a situation where motorists have a fairly straightforward choice between money and time, surveys were carried out in italy in association with concessionie costruzioni autostrade s.p.a. the surveys were concerned with journeys over two stretches of road, from caianello to rome and from modena to milan, where there were clear alternatives between paying to travel on the autostrada or travelling free on a parallel all-purpose road. origin-destination surveys were carried out at sites on both roads near rome and milan and journey time surveys were made over the ordinary roads; journey times on the autostradas were obtained from the times recorded on the tickets. there are three scales of toll charges for cars of different sizes and time differences were calculated for each car class. a logit analysis was carried out on the choice of route based on the time differences and the cost differences, which were taken as the toll charge. journeys were divided by purpose into those in the course of work those to and from work, and other journeys. under the conditions of this investigation average values of time per car, converted at the official exhcange rate of 1485 lira to a pound are for journeys in the course of work 3.00, for journeys to and from work 0.90 and for other journeys 1.25. only limited data were collected on income but the indications are that in non-working time the overall hourly income and that in working hours it is over double the average income (a).