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Method Factsheet - Travel Cost Valuation

Resource description:

The travel cost methods (TCM) is based on the observation that recreational services can only be realised through physical access to nature. This implies that individuals seeking to enjoy the service will need to spend resources (time and money) to travel to the site. The travel activity is a reflection of the use value this service has to people. Travel cost valuation may be based on single or multiple sites. Accessibility to the site(s) must be calculated using GIS (and preferably distances to the sites through the road network) to generate accurate value estimates. Econometric methods are used to estimate recreational demand functions (single sites) and models of choice of visit (multiple sites).

Author/Contact:

Prof Mette Termansen,

Department of Environmental Science – Environmental social science,

Frederiksborgvej 399,

Building 7420, K1.05,

4000 Roskilde,

Denmark.

+45 87158645

mter@envs.au.dk

Publication date:

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Requirements:

  • Data on travel costs are mainly collected by economists themselves. GIS estimates of network distances and data on site attributes are sometimes collected with help from researchers from other fields.
  • Software is available either free (e.g. R) or on licence (e.g. ArcGIS).
  • Multiple-site travel costs estimates are usually conducted in specialised software such as STATA, NLogit or similar, but free software exist such as BIogene.

Advantages:

  • Travel cost is a recognised and established approach drawing on revealed data
  • The method can be used to provide a public policy rationale for providing green spaces for recreational activities
  • It can be used to study designs of recreational site quality.

Constraints:

  • It requires large data sets on recreational activities and extensive GIS pre-processing of travel cost data and site characteristics (multiple site approach)
  • The method is specific to the estimation of recreational services and cannot be generalised to estimate a range of other services
  • Results are highly sensitive to assumptions about cost of time.

Licence:

  • Free, no licence

Development stage:

  • Full, working product
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