Adverse Weather and Commuting Speed

This paper investigates the welfare effect of travelling through congested areas and adverse weather through changes in the speed of individuals’ car trips based on the entire commuting trip. Weather measurements are local and time specific (hourly basis). As most commuters travel twice a day between home and work, we are able to employ panel data techniques, which deals with issues related to unobserved heterogeneity and data selection. We find that travelling through congested areas reduces speed by about 7%. For most commuters the welfare effects of adverse weather conditions are negative but small. However, the commuters’ welfare costs due to rain are rather substantial during the evening peak in congested areas (and up to 12% of the overall commuting costs).