SOCIAL BENEFITS OF IVHS SYSTEMS

Using national time diary estimates it is calculated that annually about 750 billion dollars of time value is devoted to travel in the United States. IVHS systems would be effective in reducing this number as well as the long commutes that create it. Most research on travel time considers average commuting time. Yet a mean preserving reduction in the dispersion of travel time will create social benefits too, since the conditional loss function is convex from below. New technology to reduce " excessive" delays even at the cost of a somewhat longer expected trip duration is thus of value.