The concept of perceived cost as used in transport economics is described. Three causes of inaccurately perceived cost are analysed in the light of traditional economic theory. The notion of consumers' overheads is introduced to explain how costs may be systematically misperceived, and is incorporated into a modified theory of consumer behaviour. From this theory the method of treating misperceived costs in the economic evaluation of policies is developed. Finally there are some notes on estimation procedure.
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