Keith Vodden Dr. Douglas Smith - Transports Canada

Ontario Model
VARIABLE
DATA
LOST TIME
W-wage or value of time
$20.60 per hour-average of upper and lower
bound estimates.
Occupants 1.5 per vehicle (includes all types of vehicles) 1
Vehicles affected (traffic volume)
24-hour traffic distribution data. Volumes were
adjusted to reflect varying degrees of road
closure from full to partial as described in
COMPASS incident reports.
ADDITIONAL FUEL USE
Additional fuel use
2.25 litres per idling hour plus 5.5 litres per hour
for additional driving time.
Fuel price $0.766 per litre —Ontario price in 2004.
ADDITIONAL EMISSIONS
CO 2 emissions
[CO 2 +CAC]$
245 kg per 100 kilometers—double when idling.
$70 per CO 2 tonne- average of upper and lower
bound estimates.
To clarify how these data are used, consider a typical incident. In this example,
assume that a segment of Highway 401 is closed for three hours and that this means that
each affected vehicle is stopped for two hours followed by one hour of detour/delayed
travel.
• Time Cost: As noted, the congestion cost model uses a stop time of two hours (or
the duration of closure whichever is smaller) and a slow driving/detour time of
one hour (or the duration of closure whichever is smaller). Further assume that
“normal” traffic volume is 2,000 vehicles per hour. This implies a total of 6,000
affected vehicles, 1.5 persons per vehicle and three hours of delay. Person hours
1 We used an average vehicle occupancy factor of 1.5. Some studies in the GTA suggest the average auto
occupancy is between 1.10 and 1.20 depending on location and time of the day, and has a decreasing
trend over time. However, to account for some other vehicle categories such as transit buses, school
buses, and some commercial vehicle categories we decided to use the factor of 1. 5. The analyst has
control over this assumption in the model.
TNS Canadian Facts, Social and Policy Research 43