People hate wasting time commuting. But translating that into a monetary value to help government policy isn't that straightforward. Christian Krekel, George MacKerron and Iven Stead present a new method to put a value on people's time by sampling people's feelings throughout the day.

The average road user loses about 115 hours per year to congestion in the UK, and about 100 hours in the US. This suggests a huge potential for investments in time-saving transport infrastructure such as high-speed rail, highways, or digital services to optimise scheduling. But how should government analysts value time and potential time savings, key inputs into the cost-benefit analysis of such investments?

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7 February 2025

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LSE Politics and Policy

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https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/using-peoples-feelings-to-value-time/

This Blog is published under the centre's Community Wellbeing programme.