asked Her Majesty's Government:

Further to the Written Answer by Lord Bassam of Brighton on 3 April (HL2703), when appraising a light rail scheme what values of time are ascribed to a car driver and a user of the prospective light rail scheme over a section of the journey. [HL3065]

Department for Transport guidance is that the value of time applied to the appraisal of schemes should vary by journey purpose.

For non-work purposes, everyone is assumed to have the same value of time on any mode. The following values are recommended: £5.04 per hour for commuting and £4.46 per hour for other journeys. The values for non-working time spent waiting for public transport is two and a half times the “commuting” and “other” values. Where walking and cycling is used as a means of interchange between modes of transport, the non-working values of time are doubled for that part of the journey. This reflects research suggesting people place a greater weight on these time savings.

For work purposes, the value of time varies by mode reflecting average differences in the income of relevant business travellers. For example, values of time of £36.96 per hour are applied to rail journeys and £26.43 per hour for journeys by car. There was insufficient data to produce a specific value of time for working journeys by light rail when these figures were calculated. Promoters will either apply the average value across all modes (£26.73 per hour) or, making a judgment informed by local circumstances, apply the values for other modes. This is reviewed by the department on a case-by-case basis.

All values are in market prices and expressed in average 2002 prices and values.