Long-Run vs. Short-Run Perspectives on Consumer Scheduling: Evidence from a Revealed-Preference Experiment among Peak-Hour Road Commuters

Theoretical and empirical studies of consumer scheduling behavior usually ignore that consumers have more flexibility to adjust their schedule in the long run than in the short run. We are able to distinguish between long-run choices of travel routines and short-run choices of departure times due to an extensive panel dataset of commuters who participate in a real-life peak avoidance experiment. We find that the participants, who obtain a monetary reward for not traveling along a camera-observed highway link during the morning peak, value travel time higher in the long-run context compared to the short run, as changes in travel time are more permanent and can be exploited better through the adjustment of routines. Schedule delays are, in contrast, valued higher inthe short-run model, reflecting that scheduling restrictions are typically more binding in the short run. Since the short-run and the long-run shadow prices differ by factors ranging from 2 to 5 in our basic model, our results may have substantial impacts on optimal choices for transport policies such as pricing and investment.