Tuesday, April 29, 2008
A Tracking Experiment
So I wanted to conduct an experiment and find out roughly how much my free time was worth to me. I took one of our test tracking devices and used the report generator to find out exactly what my commute was in terms of time and miles driven and compare it to alternate routes.
In the morning, I drive I-170 to work. It's 9.2 miles and takes me about 20 minutes. In the evenings I drive back home taking highway 100 and 61/67. It takes me 30 minutes and covers a distance of 11.1 miles. So why don't I take the shorter route in the evening? Because it's crowded, there's construction, and all told it usually takes me about 40 minutes to go North, even though it takes half the time for me to go South. In my mind, the extra 10 minutes of my time is worth the added two miles of wear on my car. How do I figure?
Vehicle wear is generally figured at around $.55/mile. True, gas is high right now, but the fuel component of vehicle wear isn't all that much (my car gets about 20 miles/gallon in the city, so even at $3.599, gas is only costing me about $.18/mile), and my car has better fuel economy than most. So at $.55 cents per mile, the added 1.9 miles to my commute costs me just over $1.04 per trip. The trip saves me 10 minutes, so I'm billing myself $6.27/hour so I can get home faster.
So what's the value of my free time? At least $6.27 per hour.
In terms of opportunity cost, if I was using that time to get to another job at which they paid me $10/hr, it would be worth it for me to to take the longer route that saved me 10 minutes. If the change in commute only saved me 5 minutes, then the value of my time jumps to $12.54, in which case I would take the shorter route and endure the extra 5 minutes of traffic, because the added wages for working 5 minutes at the other job wouldn't cover the costs of the added wear to my vehicle.
But wait, there's more. There's a more direct route for me, it just happens to be closed right now. I could take 67 to 40 and then take McKnight all the way down--it's the most direct route, but 40 is closed and, according to plans, will have been closed for a year before they finish it.
Obviously I can't drive the route and determine it's length, but let's just make up some numbers. Let's say it would save me 1/2 a mile in the morning, (which means saving me 2-1/2 miles in the evening) and would shave 10 minutes off my daily commute. These are actually fairly reasonable numbers. Three miles at $.55/mile is $1.65. If my time is worth at least $6.27 per hour, then I'm losing at least $1.045/day. If I work 240 days a year, then I've lost $396 in wear for my vehicle and upwards of $250.80 in terms of my time, meaning that the state of Missouri has cost me upwards of $650 for the year.
I wonder if I could write that off my taxes.
In the morning, I drive I-170 to work. It's 9.2 miles and takes me about 20 minutes. In the evenings I drive back home taking highway 100 and 61/67. It takes me 30 minutes and covers a distance of 11.1 miles. So why don't I take the shorter route in the evening? Because it's crowded, there's construction, and all told it usually takes me about 40 minutes to go North, even though it takes half the time for me to go South. In my mind, the extra 10 minutes of my time is worth the added two miles of wear on my car. How do I figure?
Vehicle wear is generally figured at around $.55/mile. True, gas is high right now, but the fuel component of vehicle wear isn't all that much (my car gets about 20 miles/gallon in the city, so even at $3.599, gas is only costing me about $.18/mile), and my car has better fuel economy than most. So at $.55 cents per mile, the added 1.9 miles to my commute costs me just over $1.04 per trip. The trip saves me 10 minutes, so I'm billing myself $6.27/hour so I can get home faster.
So what's the value of my free time? At least $6.27 per hour.
In terms of opportunity cost, if I was using that time to get to another job at which they paid me $10/hr, it would be worth it for me to to take the longer route that saved me 10 minutes. If the change in commute only saved me 5 minutes, then the value of my time jumps to $12.54, in which case I would take the shorter route and endure the extra 5 minutes of traffic, because the added wages for working 5 minutes at the other job wouldn't cover the costs of the added wear to my vehicle.
But wait, there's more. There's a more direct route for me, it just happens to be closed right now. I could take 67 to 40 and then take McKnight all the way down--it's the most direct route, but 40 is closed and, according to plans, will have been closed for a year before they finish it.
Obviously I can't drive the route and determine it's length, but let's just make up some numbers. Let's say it would save me 1/2 a mile in the morning, (which means saving me 2-1/2 miles in the evening) and would shave 10 minutes off my daily commute. These are actually fairly reasonable numbers. Three miles at $.55/mile is $1.65. If my time is worth at least $6.27 per hour, then I'm losing at least $1.045/day. If I work 240 days a year, then I've lost $396 in wear for my vehicle and upwards of $250.80 in terms of my time, meaning that the state of Missouri has cost me upwards of $650 for the year.
I wonder if I could write that off my taxes.
Labels: GPS, technology
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