Travel Time Estimation as a Global Trend in the Analysis of Innovative Transportation Projects

Research background: The problem of evaluating the results of innovative transport technologies is extremely important for their implementation and realization. The assessment of possible benefits of innovative transport projects is complicated by a number of circumstances. These include a wide range of arising effects in various forms and the long life cycle of the project, which increases the difficulty of reliably measuring the various costs and results. Thus, it can be argued that outdated approaches and methods for assessing the new transport products hinder the development of innovations. Purpose of the article: to identify directions for assessing the travel time value in the analysis of the transportation projects economic efficiency. Methods: The study was conducted by means of scientific methods such as the comparative analysis, system method, generalization and abstraction. Also, we use the results of expert assessments based on depth-in interviews. Findings & Value added: The article substantiates the necessity of taking into account the incremental benefits for passengers from travel time reduction as the most important aspect of transport projects implementation, ensuring the formation of the whole range of external social and economic effects; The multi-factor dependence of the travel time value for a passenger, which is characterised by its heterogeneity during a journey, has been substantiated. The necessity of assessing changes of travel time values in the general transport costs of passengers has been substantiated, taking into account the several factors that lead to different time values. A visual model of the socio-economic effects formation of the HSR project, caused by changes in the passengers’ total transport costs and increased transport accessibility of the region, is proposed