Productivity and usefulness of travel time in the age of digitalisation

In the last 15 years, an increasing number of studies argued that the disutility that we attach to travel time in transport appraisal can be reduced by attributing productive or enjoyable activities to journeys. The increasing use of information and communication technologies (ICT) allows many new types of activities while travelling. Accounting for these activities (i.e. travel-based multitasking) and their benefits to the travellers may fundamentally change the way travel time is valued in the assessment of transport projects and policies. This will especially be important in the context of autonomous vehicles as the drivers will be able to spend their travel time on various activities. Information about how passengers spend their travel time may also help transport operators to adapt their service offers to the needs of passengers, e.g. in terms of ergonomics or internet connectivity, and thus maintain their customers or promote a shift to their services. Travel-based multitasking also has an influence on the effectiveness of advertising in vehicles and at stations.

There is still, however, little evidence on many aspects of travel-based multitasking, therefore the following possible research questions are worth investigating:

• How is the value of travel time changing due to the emergence of different multitasking activities?
• How can we measure the ‘productivity value’ of multimodal trips? Is it possible to develop an indicator?
• Do travelers benefit from episodes of ‘doing nothing’ and relaxing which are traditionally considered as wasted time.
• How can we standardize the categories for travel-based multitasking activities for empirical research?
• What is the impact of attitudes and cultural norms on the type of travel-based multitasking activities that travelers are engaged in?
• How can new types of advertising methods complement traditional outdoor media to attract the attention of multitasking passengers?

Proposals are welcome that address the above research questions or other ideas related to travel- based multitasking are also welcome.

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