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on Discrete Choice Models |
| By: | Deborah E. Lee, Stephen G. Hosking and Mario Du Preez |
| Abstract: | Estuaries in South Africa face negative crowding effects with respect to motorised boat use, due to competing demand. This paper proposes this be managed through user charges and that the setting of these charges be informed by applying a choice experiment to estimate user preferences for reduced motorized boat congestion on the Kromme River Estuary, Eastern Cape. The application of this method led the paper to deduce that users are willing to pay an additional supplementary charge of R483 per annum during peak periods in order to experience a decrease in negative crowding effects and an improvement in overall welfare. |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rza:wpaper:366&r=dcm |
| By: | Vij, Akshay |
| Abstract: | Latent modal preferences, or modality styles, are defined as behavioral predispositions towards a certain travel mode or set of travel modes that an individual habitually uses. They are reflective of higher-level orientations, or lifestyles, that are hypothesized to influence all dimensions of an individual’s travel and activity behavior. For example, in the context of travel mode choice different modality styles may be characterized by the set of travel modes that an individual might consider when deciding how to travel, her sensitivity, or lack thereof, to different level-of-service attributes of the transportation (and land use) system when making that decision, and the socioeconomic characteristics that predispose her one way or another. Travel demand models currently in practice assume that individuals are aware of the full range of alternatives at their disposal, and that a conscious choice is made based on a tradeoff between perceived costs and benefits associated with alternative attributes. Heterogeneity in the choice process is typically represented as systematic taste variation or random taste variation to incorporate both observable and unobservable differences in sensitivity to alternative attributes. Though such a representation is convenient from the standpoint of model estimation, it overlooks the effects of inertia, incomplete information and indifference that are reflective of more profound individual variations in lifestyles built around the use of different travel modes and their concurrent influence on all dimensions of individual and household travel and activity behavior. The objectives of this dissertation are three-fold: (1) to develop a travel demand model framework that captures the influence of modality styles on multiple dimensions of individual and household travel and activity behavior; (2) to test that the framework is both methodologically flexible and empirically robust; and (3) to demonstrate the value of the framework to transportation policy and practice. |
| Keywords: | Engineering |
| Date: | 2013–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:uctcwp:qt7ng2z24q&r=dcm |
| By: | Andreassen, Leif; Dagsvik, John; Di Tommaso, Maria Laura (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | Sen’s capability approach distinguishes between what people are free to do and to be (their ‘capabilities’) and what they do and who they are (their ‘functionings’). In the capability approach,individuals’ well-being is evaluated not only in terms of achieved functionings, but also in terms of the freedom to choose between different functionings. I t implies that individuals with the same observed functionings may have different well-being because their choice sets (i.e. capabilities) are different. The measurement of capabilities is difficult because they are not observed. In this paper, we measure the capability of Italian women to move freely even if we only observe the realized choices. In order to distinguish between the latent capabilities of movement and the observed functionings, we adopt a new methodology based on the theory of random scale models. The data set is selected from a domestic violence survey of 25,000 Italian women for year 20 06. We demonstrate that such models can offer a suitable framework for measuring well-being freedom and therefore capabilities. In particular, we find out that the percentage of women who are predicted to be restricted in their freedom of movement is about 25% . Moreover, if all women were unconstrained, 16.4 percent of them would choose to do more activities, i.e to have more freedom of movement. |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:dipeco:201334&r=dcm |