New Approach to Appraisal of Rail Freight Projects in South Korea

초록

This paper contributes to the estimation of the value of rail freight transit time savings, reliability, and service frequency for producers and transport operators by using stated preference data for short-haul rail freight shipments in South Korea. To appraise investments in freight projects in South Korea, the mixed logit model was used to determine the value of rail freight transit time savings, resulting in an estimated savings of about $2.31/hpershipment.Thevalueofrailfreightreliability(thepercentageofon-timearrivalsanddepartures)is$2.78/h of delay and $0.54/dayforscheduledfreightservicedelay.Theresultsforfreighttimevaluefordifferenteconomicagentsaresurprising:shippersperceivedthevalueoftransittime,transittimereliability,andservicefrequencytobefarhigherthanproducersdid.Shippersvaluedrailfreighttransittimesavingsatabout$235/metric ton h, whereas this same value for producers was $1.21/metric ton h. When the time benefit based on these values was added to the preliminary feasibility evaluation for 20 freight railroad infrastructure projects in South Korea, the number of projects for which benefits outweighed costs increased from four to 11.