Reisetid

Reisetid is a term used in transport planning and everyday language to describe the time required to travel from one place to another. In Scandinavian contexts it encompasses the total duration from departure to arrival, including in-vehicle time, access and egress segments, waiting times, and transfers between modes, as well as possible delays. Reisetid can be expressed as door-to-door, person-to-person, or gate-to-gate depending on the definition used.

Measuring reisetid typically involves estimates under standard conditions or observations of real-world travel. Common approaches include historical averages, time-of-day profiles, and probabilistic travel-time distributions. Data sources include official travel surveys, timetable data, floating-car measurements, and increasingly, GPS and mobile phone data. For public transport, reisetid is influenced by service frequency and reliability; for car travel, by congestion and incidents.

Applications of reisetid include evaluating accessibility and equity, forecasting traffic and mobility impacts of new infrastructure, and conducting cost-benefit analyses. Reisetid is linked to related concepts such as travel-time reliability, which assesses variability and the chance of meeting expected times, and travel-time budgets used in demand modeling.

Challenges in working with reisetid include varying definitions of what counts as travel time, regional differences in data quality, and the dynamic nature of transport networks. Real-time data and isochrone mapping enhance the ability to visualize reisetid for specific origins and destinations. Policymakers and planners use reisetid to compare alternatives, identify bottlenecks, and improve the efficiency and fairness of transportation systems.