A study on benefit estimation that considers the values of travel time and travel time reliability in road networks

This study proposes a benefit estimation method that considers travel time reliability. The proposed method is based on a network model that is formulated as a utility maximization problem with constraints. Since this utility maximization problem has the same equilibrium conditions as a multi-class user equilibrium traffic assignment problem with elastic demand, both transport demand forecasting and benefit estimation can be carried out in the same framework. By assuming a certain form for the utility function, the road network model can estimate the prohibitive price, so the proposed method is convenient for estimating opportunity loss due to disruption of origin-destination connection in the event of a natural disaster. Furthermore, the values of travel time and travel time reliability are estimated endogenously in the proposed method; thus, changes in these values can be reflected in the benefit estimation. A numerical experiment demonstrates the method presented in this study.