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on Transport Economics |
| By: | Lana Krehic (Department of Economics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology) |
| Abstract: | Several cities around the world try to internalise congestion costs from road traffic by instituting charges for entering their city centres. The revenues collected from these charges are often redistributed to improve conditions for motorists, cy- clists, pedestrians and public transport. At the same time, many schemes allow for exemption of cleaner vehicles, which might offset the reduction in congestion and reduce revenue. In this paper, I assess the effects of exempting electric vehicles from charge on the charge level. Using panel data of Norwegian cities with urban toll rings, I exploit regional variation, and and that a higher share of electric vehicles increase toll charges. The results imply that owners of conventional cars pay 2.5 NOK (0.3 USD) more per passing because of the exemption. The estimates are robust to variations in estimation method and sample. As the majority of electric vehicle owners have above-average income, exempting electric cars from toll charges suggests a distribution effect that have implications for social welfare. |
| Keywords: | Electric vehicles, Toll road, Distributional effects |
| JEL: | H23 R40 R42 |
| Date: | 2019–07–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nst:samfok:17819&r=all |
| By: | Baustert, Paul; Gutiérrez, Tomás Navarrete; Gibon, Thomas; Chion, Laurent; Ma, Tai Yu; Mariante, Gabriel Leite; Klein, Sylvain; Gerber, Philippe; Benetto, Enrico |
| Abstract: | According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in 2010 the transport sector was responsible for 23% of the total energy-related CO2 emissions (6.7 GtCO2) worldwide. Policy makers in Luxembourg are well-aware of the challenges and are setting ambitious objectives at country level for the mid and long term. However, a framework to assess environmental impacts from a life cycle perspective on the scale of transport policy scenarios, rather than individual vehicles, is lacking. We present a novel framework linking activity-based modeling with life cycle assessment (LCA) and a proof-of-concept case study for the French cross-border commuters working in Luxembourg. Our framework allows for the evaluation of specific policies formulated on the trip level as well as aggregated evaluation of environmental impacts from a life cycle perspective. The results of our proof-of-concept-based case study suggest that only a combination of: (1) policy measures improving the speed and coverage of the public transport system; (2) policy measures fostering electric mobility; and (3) external factors such as de-carbonizing the electricity mix will allow to counteract the expected increase in impacts due to the increase of mobility needs of the growing commuting population in the long term. |
| Keywords: | Activity-based modeling; Life cycle assessment; Policy analysis; Sustainable mobility |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2019–07–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:101425&r=all |
| By: | Philipp Kluschke; Fabian Neumann |
| Abstract: | A potential solution to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the transport sector is to use alternatively fueled vehicles (AFV). Heavy-duty vehicles (HDV) emit a large share of GHG emissions in the transport sector and are therefore the subject of growing attention from global regulators. Fuel cell and green hydrogen technologies are a promising option to decarbonize HDVs, as their fast refueling and long vehicle ranges are in line with current logistic operation concepts. Moreover, the application of green hydrogen in transport could enable more effective integration of renewable energies (RE) across different energy sectors. This paper explores the interplay between HDV Hydrogen Refueling Stations (HRS) that produce hydrogen locally and the power system by combining an infrastructure location planning model and an energy system optimization model that takes grid expansion options into account. Two scenarios - one sizing refueling stations in symbiosis with the power system and one sizing them independently of it - are assessed regarding their impacts on the total annual energy system costs, regional RE integration and the levelized cost of hydrogen (LCOH). The impacts are calculated based on locational marginal pricing for 2050. Depending on the integration scenario, we find average LCOH of between 5.66 euro/kg and 6.20 euro/kg, for which nodal electricity prices are the main determining factor as well as a strong difference in LCOH between north and south Germany. From a system perspective, investing in HDV-HRS in symbiosis with the power system rather than independently promises cost savings of around one billion-euros per annum. We therefore conclude that the co-optimization of multiple energy sectors is important for investment planning and has the potential to exploit synergies. |
| Date: | 2019–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1908.10119&r=all |
| By: | Barbour, Elisa; Chatman, Daniel G.; Doggett, Sarah; Yip, Stella; Santana, Manuel |
| Abstract: | California’s Senate Bill (SB) 743, enacted in 2013, marks a historic shift in how the traffic impacts of development projects are to be evaluated and mitigated statewide. To help achieve state climate policy and sustainability goals, SB 743 eliminates traffic delay as an environmental impact under the California Environmental Quality Act. State implementing guidelines for SB 743 instead require an assessment of vehicle miles traveled (VMT). The adoption of the guidelines sparked debate and raised far-reaching questions about development planning. Our research consisted of four parts. First, we considered how the state guidelines might be applied by analyzing travel patterns across and within California cities in relation to the guidelines. We also interviewed fortythree professional transportation consultants and regional and local planners to provide insights on SB 743 implementation. In addition, we carried out extensive case studies of San Francisco and Pasadena, where policies had already been adopted to align with SB 743. Finally, to help assess the technical challenges involved in SB 743 implementation, we tested two VMT estimation tools in common use and considered the practical challenges facing tool users. We find that SB 743 implementation is likely to present some transitional challenges for city planners, but the long-term prospects for improving transportation planning as a result of the law are promising. |
| Keywords: | Social and Behavioral Sciences, California, Senate Bill 743, CEQA, vehicle miles of travel, traffic estimation, travel patterns, land use planning, policy analysis, climate change, sustainable transportation |
| Date: | 2019–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:itsrrp:qt4gj3n2n3&r=all |
| By: | Fan, Yueyue; Zhang, Yunteng |
| Abstract: | Ideally, public transit, by moving more people using fewer vehicles, serves as a backbone of a transportation system. However, most transit systems in the United States suffer from low ridership and high operating costs, thus they provide a significantly compromised mobility service to the transportation system users. Under current transit system design principles, such as service area requirements, inefficiencies in resource use are almost inevitable. Given the opportunities brought by new mobile technology and the environment of mobility as a service, current transit system design principles need to be reevaluated and redefined to enable transit to serve as a backbone in the transportation system. In this seed-grant project, the researchers evaluated whether building an integrated multimodal public transportation system via reallocation of transit resources is financially feasible and environmentally sustainable. They also conducted an in-depth review of related literature and discussed other concerns regarding an integrated system. Based on the results from the case study and review of other recent studies, the authors draw an optimistic conclusion about an integrated service system where public and private mobility service providers coexist. |
| Keywords: | Engineering, public transit, demand responsive transportation, ridership, paratransit, transportation network company, mobility service provider |
| Date: | 2019–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:itsdav:qt77t6g3w4&r=all |
| By: | Ahlfeldt, Gabriel; Nitsch, Volker; Wendland, Nicolai |
| Abstract: | For a complete cost-benefit analysis of durable infrastructures, it is important to understand how the value of non-market goods such as transit time and environmental quality changes as incomes rise in the long-run. We use difference-in-differences and spatial differencing to estimate the land price capitalization effects of metro rail in Berlin, Germany today and a century ago. Over this period, the negative effect of rail noise tripled in percentage terms. Our results imply long-run income elasticities of the value of noise reduction and transport access of 2.2 and 1.4, substantially exceeding cross-sectional contingent valuation estimates. |
| Keywords: | accessibility; Difference-in-Differences; income elasticity; land price; noise; Spatial differencing |
| JEL: | N73 N74 R12 R14 R41 |
| Date: | 2019–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13811&r=all |
| By: | Anthony Strittmatter; Michael Lechner |
| Abstract: | The disclosure of the VW emission manipulation scandal caused a quasi-experimental market shock to the observable environmental quality of VW diesel vehicles. To investigate the market reaction to this shock, we collect data from a used-car online advertisement platform. We find that the supply of used VW diesel vehicles increases after the VW emission scandal. The positive supply side effects increase with the probability of manipulation. Furthermore, we find negative impacts on the asking prices of used cars subject to a high probability of manipulation. We rationalize these findings with a model for sorting by the environmental quality of used cars. |
| Date: | 2019–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1908.09609&r=all |
| By: | Cong Peng |
| Abstract: | Traditional retail involves traffic both from warehouses to stores and from consumers to stores. E-commerce cuts intermediate traffic by delivering goods directly from the warehouses to the consumers. Although plenty of evidence has shown that vans that are servicing e-commerce are a growing contributor to traffic and congestion, consumers are also making less shopping trips using vehicles. This poses the question of whether e-commerce reduces traffic congestion. The paper exploits the exogenous shock of an influential online shopping retail discount event in China (similar to Cyber Monday), to investigate how the rapid growth of e-commerce affects urban traffic congestion. Portraying e-commerce as trade across cities, I specified a CES demand system with heterogeneous consumers to model consumption, vehicle demand and traffic congestion. I tracked hourly traffic congestion data in 94 Chinese cities in one week before and two weeks after the event. In the week after the event, intra-city traffic congestion dropped by 1.7% during peaks and 1% during non-peak hours. Using Baidu Index (similar to Google Trends) as a proxy for online shopping, I found online shopping increasing by about 1.6 times during the event. Based on the model, I find evidence for a 10% increase in online shopping causing a 1.4% reduction in traffic congestion, with the effect most salient from 9am to 11am and from 7pm to midnight. A welfare analysis conducted for Beijing suggests that the congestion relief effect has a monetary value of around 239 million dollars a year. The finding suggests that online shopping is more traffic-efficient than offline shopping, along with sizable knock-on welfare gains. |
| Keywords: | e-commerce, traffic congestion, heterogeneous consumers, shopping vehicle demand, air pollution |
| JEL: | R4 O3 |
| Date: | 2019–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1646&r=all |
| By: | Bailey, Michael; Farrell, Patrick; Kuchler, Theresa; Ströbel, Johannes |
| Abstract: | We use anonymized and aggregated data from Facebook to explore the spatial structure of social networks in the New York metro area. We highlight the importance of transportation infrastructure in shaping urban social networks by showing that travel time and travel costs are substantially stronger predictors of social connectedness between zip codes than geographic distance is. We also document significant heterogeneity in the geographic breadth of social networks across New York zip codes, and show that much of this heterogeneity is explained by the ease of access to public transit, even after controlling for socioeconomic characteristics of the zip codes' residents. When we group zip codes with strong social ties into hypothetical communities using an agglomerative clustering algorithm, we find that geographically non-contiguous locations are grouped into socially connected communities, again highlighting that geographic distance is an imperfect proxy for urban social connectedness. We also explore the social connections between New York zip codes and foreign countries, and highlight how these are related to past migration movements. |
| Keywords: | Agglomeration externalities; Social Connectedness; Transportation Infrastructure |
| JEL: | R1 R2 R3 |
| Date: | 2019–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13822&r=all |
| By: | Alexander, Diane; Schwandt, Hannes |
| Abstract: | Car exhaust is a major source of air pollution, but little is known about its impacts on population health. We exploit the dispersion of emissions-cheating diesel cars-which secretly polluted up to 150 times as much as gasoline cars-across the United States from 2008-2015 as a natural experiment to measure the health impact of car pollution. Using the universe of vehicle registrations, we demonstrate that a 10 percent cheating-induced increase in car exhaust increases rates of low birth weight and acute asthma attacks among children by 1.9 and 8.0 percent, respectively. These health impacts occur at all pollution levels and across the entire socioeconomic spectrum. |
| Keywords: | Car pollution; emissions cheating; health |
| JEL: | I10 I14 J13 K32 |
| Date: | 2019–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13805&r=all |
| By: | Mina Lee; Joseph Y. J. Chow; Gyugeun Yoon; Brian Yueshuai He |
| Abstract: | Given the lack of demand forecasting models for e-scooter sharing systems, we address this research gap using data from Portland, OR, and New York City. A log-log regression model is estimated for e-scooter trips based on user age, income, labor force participation, and health insurance coverage, with an adjusted R squared value of 0.663. When applied to the Manhattan market, the model predicts 66K daily e-scooter trips, which would translate to 67 million USD in annual revenue (based on average 12-minute trips and historical fare pricing models). We propose a novel nonlinear, multifactor model to break down the number of daily trips by the alternate modes of transportation that they would likely substitute. The final model parameters reveal a relationship with taxi trips as well as access/egress trips with public transit in Manhattan. Our model estimates that e-scooters would replace at most 1% of taxi trips; the model can explain $800,000 of the annual revenue from this competition. The distance structure of revenue from access/egress trips is found to differ significantly from that of substituted taxi trips. |
| Date: | 2019–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1908.08127&r=all |
| By: | Giuliano, Genevieve |
| Abstract: | The METRANS Transportation Center is working with California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), the California Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development, and the California Air Resources Board to implement the economic competitiveness provisions of the California Sustainable Freight Action Plan (CSFAP). The CSFAP aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) by establishing targets for freight efficiency and the transition to zero emission trucks by 2030. The CSFAP also calls for improving the economic competitiveness of the freight sector. It requires that an industry stakeholder group be convened to establish metrics and targets for economic competitiveness. This brief summarizes the research support that METRANS has been providing to this stakeholder group. The first phase of the work was to establish a framework for measuring economic competitiveness and establishing a 2030 target. METRANS has taken a deliberate approach in order to achieve consensus among the stakeholders and assure that the process would result in meaningful metrics. View the NCST Project Webpage |
| Keywords: | Business, Data analysis, Economic analysis, Economic impacts, Freight traffic, Freight transportation, Metrics (Quantitative assessment), Productivity, Supply chain management, Workshops |
| Date: | 2019–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:itsdav:qt3055c30s&r=all |
| By: | Paula Pereda; Maria Alice Christofoletti |
| Abstract: | The consolidation of the energy sector as one of the main emitters of greenhouse gases in Brazil is directly related to the expansion of fuel consumption in passenger and cargo transport and to the higher use of thermal power plants for electricity generation. This fact reflects a detachment from the historical renewable energy and biofuels production and goes against the global efforts to reduce GHG emissions. Our paper analyzes the short run emissions and distributional effects of energy price changes in a partial equilibrium framework. Our findings suggest that taxes and subsidies in fuel prices (oil and diesel, respectively) are progressive, but have positive impact on total household emissions due to substitution effects. Despite being regressive, changes in electricity price have large effects on household emissions due to the characteristics of electric energy supply in Brazil. More environment-friendly policies that subsidize ethanol have a small but positive effect on the economy and tend to reduce households emissions. However, large substitution effects - due to an increase in the demand for CO2eq intensive goods, such as commuting and transportation services - when also taxing oil do not offset the reduction in emissions caused by a lower ethanol price. Therefore, understanding who benefits from energy price taxes and subsidies and their welfare impacts policies are key to gaining public support for a greener energy matrix. |
| Keywords: | Energy policies; CO2eq emissions; households |
| JEL: | Q48 D12 D61 |
| Date: | 2019–08–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spa:wpaper:2019wpecon32&r=all |
| By: | Yu, Wenjing; Yao, Yansang |
| Keywords: | Community/Rural/Urban Development |
| Date: | 2019–06–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea19:291299&r=all |