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The Importance of Being Early

Author

Listed:
  • Pavithra Parthasarathi

  • Anupam Srivastava

  • Nikolas Geroliminis

  • David Levinson

    (Nexus (Networks, Economics, and Urban Systems) Research Group, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Minnesota)

Abstract

The assumption that the penalty for being early is less than that for being late was put forward by Vickrey (1963) who analyzed how commuters compare penalties in the form of schedule delay (due to peak hour congestion), against penalties in the form of reaching their destination (ahead or behind their desired time of arrival). This assumption has been tested by many researchers since then for various applications, especially in modeling congestion pricing (Arnott et al., 1990) where it is critical to understand the tradeoff between schedule delay and travel delay. Key findings are summarized in the second section of this paper. This research aims to test this hypothesis of earliness being less expensive than lateness using empirical data at different levels and across different regions. New methods to estimate the ratio of earliness to lateness for different types of datasets are developed, which could be used by agencies to implement control policies like congestion pricing or other schemes more accurately. Travel survey data from metropolitan areas provide individual travel patterns while loop detector data provide link level traffic flow data.

Suggested Citation

  • Pavithra Parthasarathi & Anupam Srivastava & Nikolas Geroliminis & David Levinson, 2009. "The Importance of Being Early," Working Papers 201103, University of Minnesota: Nexus Research Group.
    • Handle: RePEc:nex:wpaper:importanceofbeingearly
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/11299/180009
    File Function: First version, 2009
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Shanjiang Zhu & David Levinson & Henry Liu, 2017. "Measuring winners and losers from the new I-35W Mississippi River Bridge," Transportation, Springer, vol. 44(5), pages 905-918, September.
    2. Lamotte, Raphaël & Geroliminis, Nikolas, 2018. "The morning commute in urban areas with heterogeneous trip lengths," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 117(PB), pages 794-810.
    3. André de Palma & Zhenyu Yang & Pietro Giardina & Nikolas Gerolimnis, 2025. "Recovering Scheduling Preferences in Dynamic Departure Time Models," Thema Working Papers 2025-15, THEMA (Théorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), CY Cergy-Paris University, ESSEC and CNRS.
    4. Yang Gao & David Levinson, 2024. "A bifurcation of the peak: new patterns of traffic peaking during the COVID-19 era," Transportation, Springer, vol. 51(2), pages 329-349, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • R41 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - Transportation: Demand, Supply, and Congestion; Travel Time; Safety and Accidents; Transportation Noise
    • R42 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - Government and Private Investment Analysis; Road Maintenance; Transportation Planning
    • R48 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - Government Pricing and Policy
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles

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