Results from the UK Department for Transport's 2006 M6 Toll Research Project Freight Study.

This paper outlines the results of the freight modelling exercise undertaken on the recent Department for Transport funded M6 Toll study. The purpose of this study is not to evaluate the M6 Toll but to understand how toll levels on an interurban trunk road influence freight travel demands in circumstances where there is a choice between tolled and free routes. The study provided a rare and valuable opportunity to find out more about freight decision making, in particular the willingness to pay tolls in return for quicker, more reliable, and more pleasant journeys. We contacted M6T users and non-users, and conducted interviews with LGV and HGV decision makers involving a wider variety of load types. Freight SPs were gathered through face to face driver interviews and mailback questionairres for decision makers. All respondents were either M6Toll users or potential users. We generate high quality responses by tailoring the SP experiment to the circumstances of the individual respondent. The first SP experiment involves 4 screens offering 3 choices, relating to the 3 broad route options M6 Toll, M6 and A roads. There was considerable customisation on the journey options offered, but attribute level differences remained constant for respondents. Where drivers passed the M6Toll during the peak, two tolled options were offered - one at the current time and one at an-off peak time with a toll reduction, in order to calculate the value of departure time shifts. The second SP experimental design consists of 5 screens of 4 columns, which relate to anonymous roads, two of which are tolled and two not. The purpose of this was to avoid any special factors affecting the particular roads named in SP1. Compared to SP1, longer journeys are considered, of which almost all might be on tolled roads, allowing us to propose larger hypothetical tolls than we could for the M6 Toll Road. Larger toll allows us to check for the high values of time that might occur for urgent traffic, eg. LGV traffic, parcels traffic, J-I-T movements etc. It also means that we did not have to use the very smallest permissible time differences. This makes the design better presentationally and easier for respondents to complete. The paper will present the results from a set of disaggregate demand models by market segment. The market segmentation includes LGV/ HGVs, and commodity groupings. The results will provide valuations of free flow time, start-stop time, delay time, and constants for the different road types. These results should provide a valuable insight into the toll willingness to pay of tolls and value of time for freight operators. For the covering abstract see ITRD E137145.