TRAVEL TIME VARIABILITY AND ITS EFFECT ON TIME OF DAY CHOICE FOR THE JOURNEY TO WORK --TRANSPORTATION PLANNING METHODS. PROCEEDINGS OF SEMINAR C HELD AT THE PTRC SUMMER ANNUAL MEETING, BATH UNIVERSITY ENGLAND, 7-11 SEPTEMBER 1987, VOLUME P290

Abstract

Review of evidence for travel time variability and commuters attitudes to it, with special reference to drivers' scheduling of their journeys to work. It is well known that travel times are adversely affected in highly congested conditions, and there is now considerable evidence that commuters retime their journeys to avoid the peak. The increasing practice of flexitime favours such retiming, and once again the effects have been well documented. Models have been developed, mainly in the United States, to explain the choice of departure/arrival time for the journey to work. However, there is also evidence that not only average journey times, but also the unreliability of such journey times (as measured, e.g. By the standard deviation) increase with congestion, and that this unreliability may be a more important component in affecting the retiming of journey than increased travel times. If this is so, changes in the level of unreliability may lead to retiming of journey even though mean speeds remain constant. The paper reviews the evidence for travel time variability, and travellers' attitudes to it, making use of work carried out at the university of Leeds and of a study currently being carried out by the mva consultancy for the transport and Road Research Laboratory. The object of the study is to develop a suitable measure of unreliability and to see to what extent it can be traded against other factors affecting the timing of journeys.(a) for the covering abstract of the seminar see IRRD 816404.

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