NEW VALUES OF TIME AND RELIABILITY IN FREIGHT TRANSPORT IN THE NETHERLANDS

A research project has been carried out for AVV (Transport Research Centre) of the Dutch Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management to establish monetary values for transport time and reliability in goods transport in The Netherlands. In The Netherlands, cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is considered an indispensable tool in evaluating transport infrastructure projects. A research programme on the effects of infrastructure (OEI) was launched in 2000, resulting in guidelines about the way CBA needs to be calculated and presented. The time savings from an improvement in transport infrastructure are an important direct effect in the cost-benefit analysis of an investment in infrastructure and in a recent evaluation of the OEI guidelines it was advised to further improve the quality of input values for the main direct effects. Reliability benefits are currently not included in the cost-benefit framework used in The Netherlands, but the possibilities of including these are being studied.