nep-tre New Economics Papers
on Transport Economics
Issue of 2013‒10‒25
thirteen papers chosen by
Erik Teodoor Verhoef
VU University Amsterdam

  1. Measuring and Valuing Convenience and Service Quality: A Review of Global Practices and Challenges from Mass Transit Operators and Railway Industries By Richard Anderson; Benjamin Condry; Nicholas Findlay; Ruben Brage-Ardao; Haojie Li
  2. Toward a Single Aviation Market in ASEAN: Regulatory Reform and Industry Challenges By Alan Khee-Jin TAN
  3. On the Value of Crowding in Public Tansport for Ile-de-France By Eric Kroes; Marco Kouwenhoven; Laurence Debrincat; Nicolas Pauget
  4. Road Connectivity and the Border Effect: Evidence from Europe By Mauro Pisu; Henrik Braconier
  5. Appraising transport strategies that induce land use changes By Parker, Chris
  6. Les véhicules électrifiés réduisent-ils les émissions de carbone ? Un raisonnement prospectif By Adrien Vogt-Schilb; Céline Guivarch; Jean-Charles Hourcade
  7. The Effect of Public Policies on Consumers' Preferences: Lessons from the French Automobile Market By D'Haultfoeuille, Xavier; Durrmeyer, Isis; Février, Philippe
  8. Quantifying the Effects of Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans By Hector G. LOPEZ-RUIZ; Panayotis CHRISTIDIS; Hande DEMIREL; Mert KOMPIL
  9. CAPITAL APPRAISAL HANDBOOK FOR PROVINCIAL ROADS: LIMPOPO PROVINCE By Andrey Klevchuk; Glenn Jenkins
  10. Infrastructure Rehabilitation By Junko Sagara; Mikio Ishiwatari
  11. Capturing the value of public land for urban infrastructure : centrally controlled landholdings By Peterson, George E.; Thawakar, Vasudha
  12. The Intergenerational Transmission of Automobile Brand Preferences: Empirical Evidence and Implications for Firm Strategy By Soren T. Anderson; Ryan Kellogg; Ashley Langer; James M. Sallee
  13. Reprisals Remembered: German-Greek Conflict and Car Sales during the Euro Crisis By Vasiliki Fouka; Hans-Joachim Voth

  1. By: Richard Anderson; Benjamin Condry; Nicholas Findlay; Ruben Brage-Ardao; Haojie Li
    Abstract: Origin-destination demand, trip patterns, pricing and transport networks alone cannot explain passenger demand for public transport modes. Other factors of convenience and service quality play a key role in influencing demand and mode choice but they are often more complex and harder to define, measure and value. This paper argues that the good measurement of public transport convenience and service quality is a pre-requisite to its valuation and ensuring more optimal policy and management actions to minimise passengers’ generalised time. The paper focusses necessarily on the urban public transport operator and its measurement of service quality. We review the practical experience gained from over 20 years of international benchmarking with more than 50 metro, bus and suburban rail operators in large cities around the world. Specifically, we review the current standards and practices from the urban railway industry in measuring service quality and provide examples of how such performance in metro operations varies globally. It is demonstrated that current practice in many cities remains too operationally based, despite there being an opportunity for much more customer focused measures of service quality using the greatly increased data availability from new technologies. The experience of the UK railway industry in valuing convenience and service quality is discussed. Here, a common framework for demand forecasting has been developed combining service quality and convenience measures with other service attributes to effectively measure the “attractiveness” of the service to customers. The paper concludes by considering the implications and opportunities for public transport operators, authorities and regulators worldwide in better measuring, valuing and managing public transport convenience in order to better meet mobility needs.
    Date: 2013–09–18
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:itfaab:2013/16-en&r=tre
  2. By: Alan Khee-Jin TAN (Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore)
    Abstract: The ASEAN Single Aviation Market or Open Skies project aims to liberalize the air transport industry in ASEAN by 2015. However, the project faces significant obstacles, including non-acceptance by key member states and an incomplete agenda that excludes more ambitious relaxations to market access and ownership and control rules. The ASEAN states’ failure to forge a truly single market and a common negotiating position risks disadvantaging their airlines visà- vis competitors from larger unified markets such as China.
    Keywords: Air Transportation, Air Travel, Airline, Aviation
    JEL: L93
    Date: 2013–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:era:wpaper:dp-2013-22&r=tre
  3. By: Eric Kroes; Marco Kouwenhoven; Laurence Debrincat; Nicolas Pauget
    Abstract: Since the mid 90’s, public transport patronage in Île-de-France (the Paris region) has increased substantially: over the last decade alone a 20% growth was observed. This growth, even though it was an aim of the Sustainable Urban Mobility plan adopted in 2000, was not completely anticipated. Consequently, the capacity is no longer sufficient to meet the demand during the peak hours, particularly on several parts of the network in the dense central area of the region. This results in over-crowded vehicles and long waiting times for passengers at rail platforms and bus stops. The lack of maintenance and modernisation of the transport system causes additional operational difficulties.
    Date: 2013–09–19
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:itfaab:2013/18-en&r=tre
  4. By: Mauro Pisu; Henrik Braconier
    Abstract: Several studies have reported a large negative effect of national borders on the volume of trade. We provide new estimates of the border effect for continental Europe using road rather than great circle – or “as-crows-fly” – distance. Road distances for 48 180 European city pairs have been extracted from Bing Maps Routing Services. As our dataset also has information on travel time, we are able to consider costs related to time in addition to those depending on distance. We find that for the same great circle distance and the same city size, the road distance between two cities located in the same country is around 10% shorter than that between cities located in different ones. Travel speed is also higher between cities in the same country. We find that by using measures based on the actual road distance rather than the great circle distance, the negative effect of international borders on goods trade in a standard gravity equation is lowered by around 15%. Time-related trade costs account for an additional 10% reduction in the border effect. Overall these results point to the importance of road networks – and road transport policy in general – to enhance market integration.
    Date: 2013–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:not:notgep:13/06&r=tre
  5. By: Parker, Chris (New Zealand Institute of Economic Research)
    Abstract: This paper develops formulations for estimating the economic welfare impacts of transport strategies that change land use. The formulations seek to use outputs of transport modelling typically used for transport appraisal.
    Keywords: transport; cost benefit analysis; land use; New Zealand
    JEL: D61 R14 R40
    Date: 2013–06–05
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:nzierw:2013_004&r=tre
  6. By: Adrien Vogt-Schilb (CIRED - Centre International de Recherche sur l'Environnement et le Développement - Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement [CIRAD] : UMR56 - CNRS : UMR8568 - École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales [EHESS] - École des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC) - AgroParisTech); Céline Guivarch (CIRED - Centre International de Recherche sur l'Environnement et le Développement - Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement [CIRAD] : UMR56 - CNRS : UMR8568 - École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales [EHESS] - École des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC) - AgroParisTech); Jean-Charles Hourcade (CIRED - Centre International de Recherche sur l'Environnement et le Développement - Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement [CIRAD] : UMR56 - CNRS : UMR8568 - École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales [EHESS] - École des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC) - AgroParisTech)
    Abstract: La pertinence des véhicules électrifiés (VE) pour diminuer les émissions de gaz à effet de serre (GES) est sujette à débat. De nombreuses études fondent le calcul des émissions kilométriques des VE sur le contenu carbone de l'électricité contemporaine. Nous proposons une évaluation qui mobilise une vision cohérente de l'évolution du système énergétique dans lequel les VE doivent s'insérer. Nous utilisons un modèle de simulation prospective pour produire des scénarios contrastés de l'évolution du contenu carbone de l'électricité européenne. Cet exercice suggère que si l'Europe choisit de mettre en place des politiques climatiques destinées à réduire drastiquement ses émissions de GES, le contenu carbone de l'électricité va diminuer rapidement, prolongeant sur le long terme l'avantage actuel des VE sur les véhicules classiques en termes d'émissions par kilomètre.
    Keywords: véhicules électrique; gaz à effet de serre; bilan carbone; prospective; politiques climatiques
    Date: 2013–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:ciredw:hal-00866450&r=tre
  7. By: D'Haultfoeuille, Xavier; Durrmeyer, Isis; Février, Philippe
    Abstract: In this paper, we investigate whether French consumers have modified their preferences towards environmentally-friendly vehicles between 2003 and 2008. We estimate a model of demand for automobiles incorporating both consumers' heterogeneity and CO2 emissions of the vehicles. Our results show that there has been a shift in preferences towards low-emitting cars, with an average increase of 367 euros of the willingness to pay for a reduction of 10 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer. We also stress a large heterogeneity in the evolution of preferences between consumers. Rich and young people are more sensitive to environmental issues, and our results are in line with votes for the green party at the presidential elections. We relate these changes with two environmental policies that were introduced at these times, namely the obligation of indicating energy labels by the end of 2005 and a feebate based on CO2 emissions of new vehicles in 2008. Our results suggest that such policies have been efficient tools to shift consumers utility towards environmentally-friendly goods, the shift in preferences accounting for 20% of the overall decrease in average CO2 emissions of new cars on the period.
    Keywords: environmental policy; consumers' preferences; CO2 emissions; automobiles
    JEL: D12 H23 L62 Q51
    Date: 2013–10–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:trf:wpaper:422&r=tre
  8. By: Hector G. LOPEZ-RUIZ (European Commission – JRC - IPTS); Panayotis CHRISTIDIS (European Commission – JRC - IPTS); Hande DEMIREL (European Commission – JRC - IPTS); Mert KOMPIL (European Commission – JRC - IPTS)
    Abstract: In an effort to counteract negative effects stemming from urban transport activities, many cities in Europe have engaged in planning for the sustainability of urban mobility. As with any change concerning the transport sector, uneasiness about the prospect of having to change the way cities are currently organized -in order to cut down on transport-linked nuisances- has generated a great number of questions on the best way to achieve sustainability in urban transport. The European Commission is considering a European support framework for the implementation of Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans in EU Member States. This consideration is consistent with the 2011 White Paper proposal to increase coordination between transport authorities and transport policy deciders. Consequently, an interest on how different urban measures can be used in order to render transport activities more sustainable has given way to research concerning the impacts and effects that policy measures might have on socio-ecological systems. These studies rely, mainly, on experts' opinions and past experiences in order to develop a common scorecard on how a transport system might react to different measures. This technical note uses the expert scoring information available in current scientific literature in order to explore the impacts and effects that different urban measures may have in planning for sustainability on a European wide level.
    Keywords: Sustainable, Urban, Mobility, Plans, SUMP, policy
    Date: 2013–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc84116&r=tre
  9. By: Andrey Klevchuk (Cambridge Resources International Inc.); Glenn Jenkins (Queen's University, Canada and Eastern Mediterranean University, Cyprus; Queen's University, Kingston, Canada)
    Abstract: It has been a challenge for the Limpopo Provincial Government to tackle the eradication of poverty and the acceleration of the pace of economic growth in the province. It is of importance for the Government to provide the basic infrastructure facilities such as roads, water, electricity, and telecommunication for not only the development of the region, but also the creation of a strong private sector. This handbook focuses on the process of capital appraisal by the Roads Agency Limpopo (RAL) so as to contribute to the Government in its continuous effort to improve the quality of public infrastructure delivery by its departments. The appraisal methodology employed in the handbook is based on an integrated financial, economic, stakeholder and risk analysis of new investment projects, as well as maintenance, and expansion decisions. The handbook presents that the Government officials can use the proposed methodology together with the Deighton Total Infrastructure Management System (dTIMS CTTM) software program for the allocation of the funds to the Limpopo roads, new and old, in an economically and socially efficient manner.
    Keywords: road construction and maintenance, cost-benefit analysis, South Africa
    JEL: D61 H43 H54 H76 R42
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qed:dpaper:223&r=tre
  10. By: Junko Sagara; Mikio Ishiwatari
    Keywords: Water Supply and Sanitation - Town Water Supply and Sanitation Communities and Human Settlements - Urban Slums Upgrading Environment - Natural Disasters Urban Development - Hazard Risk Management Transport Economics Policy and Planning Transport
    Date: 2013–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wboper:16141&r=tre
  11. By: Peterson, George E.; Thawakar, Vasudha
    Abstract: Government entities in India hold large amounts of public land. Their landholdings include some of the most valuable property in the country. Parts of this patrimony lie vacant or underutilized. Public sector bodies also own large blocs of land that sometimes stand in the way of efficient completion of urban infrastructure networks. At the same time, urban India is deficient in basic infrastructure -- both network infrastructure needed to support economic growth and urban service infrastructure needed to meet basic household needs like water supply, waste removal, and transportation. This condition raises fundamental questions. Are some of government landholdings"surplus"or not needed for service provision? If so, can their economic value be captured to help finance infrastructure investment? This report aims to document evolving government policies toward pubic land management. It examines how active public entities are in identifying"surplus"lands and attempting to monetize them. Public bodies in India have proved reluctant to surrender landholdings. The report therefore considers practical alternatives that have emerged, such as land trading among public institutions. Land exchange can clear the way for completion of important urban infrastructure projects, without requiring public landowners to declare their property"surplus"and suitable for market disposition.
    Keywords: Public Sector Economics,Municipal Housing and Land,Land and Real Estate Development,Real Estate Development,Public Sector Management and Reform
    Date: 2013–10–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6665&r=tre
  12. By: Soren T. Anderson; Ryan Kellogg; Ashley Langer; James M. Sallee
    Abstract: We document a strong correlation in the brand of automobile chosen by parents and their adult children, using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. This correlation could represent transmission of brand preferences across generations, or it could result from correlation in family characteristics that determine brand choice. We present a variety of empirical specifications that lend support to the former interpretation and to a mechanism that relies at least in part on state dependence. We then discuss implications of intergenerational brand preference transmission for automakers’ product-line strategies and for the strategic pricing of vehicles to different age groups.
    JEL: D43 L13 L62
    Date: 2013–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19535&r=tre
  13. By: Vasiliki Fouka; Hans-Joachim Voth
    Abstract: During the Greek debt crisis after 2010, the German government insisted on harsh austerity measures. This led to a rapid cooling of relations between the Greek and German governments. We compile a new index of public acrimony between Germany and Greece based on newspaper reports and internet search terms. This information is combined with historical maps on German war crimes during the occupation between 1941 and 1944. During months of open conflict between German and Greek politicians, German car sales fell markedly more than those of cars from other countries. This was especially true in areas affected by German reprisals during World War II: areas where German troops committed massacres and destroyed entire villages curtailed their purchases of German cars to a greater extent during conflict months than other parts of Greece. We conclude that cultural aversion was a key determinant of purchasing behavior, and that memories of past conflict can affect economic choices in a time-varying fashion. These findings are compatible with behavioral models emphasizing the importance of salience for individual decisionmaking.
    Keywords: Consumer boycott, cultural aversion, political conflict, memory, salience, car sales, Euro crisis, German-Greek relations
    JEL: D12 D74 F14 N14 N44
    Date: 2013–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bge:wpaper:726&r=tre

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