Assessing the Value of Delay to Short-Haul Carriers

This paper aims at examining the commercial vehicle operators' value of delay (VOD) due to highway congestion in urban area. The VOD is a fundamental parameter that influences the private sector's response to public freight projects and policies. This paper adopts two methods to estimate the VOD; one being the stated preference (SP) survey and the other being simulation of a carrier's fleet operations. The former applies a Logit model and estimates a driver perceived VOD as $56.48 per vehicle per hour for the regular short-haul delivers. The latter gauges the economic impact of delay on carrier's fleet operations in the Houston highway network. The operations essentially reflect more of a just-in-time system due to the rather stringent time window constraints. The simulation is conducted on a rolling time horizon with a heuristic algorithm for dispatching trucks. The major findings include, but are not limited to as follows. The drivers paid by miles perceive a significantly higher VOD than the others; the drivers are more willing to pay for a faster trip when the toll charges do not come out of their own pockets; VOD increases with uncertainty and demand for capacity. The comparison between the survey and the simulation results also indicates that the interviewed drivers perceive a significantly lower VOD than they may actually experience as a fleet, an indicator of myopic vision.