This report examines the impact of a new inter-urban highway in west Malaysia on journey times and costs and on traffic volumes and trip frequency. The major benefit of the new highway is journey time savings and behavioural values for non-working time savings are calculated using mode choice analysis. The distribution of benefits between road users of different income groups is considered. The value of non-working time savings estimated for road users in west Malaysia is similar to that found by many studies for road users in developed countries. The median value of such time savings for all road users in 37 per cent of the average hourly wage. This similarity probably reflects the fact that road users in west Malaysia come overwhelmingly from the modern sector of the economy, and very few come from the subsistence sector. The higher income groups benefited more from the new highway than the lower income groups. (Author/publisher)
Abstract