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on Transport Economics |
| By: | Börjesson, Maria (Swedish National Road & Transport Research Institute (VTI)); Asplund, Disa (Swedish National Road & Transport Research Institute (VTI)); Hamilton, Carl (Swedish National Road & Transport Research Institute (VTI)) |
| Abstract: | We simulate the external costs from road transport in a 2040 scenario where all gasoline vehicles are replaced by EV’s, and we do this for the densest regions of Sweden with a similar degree of urbanization to many other European countries, including cities, suburbs, towns and rural areas. We analyse the optimal kilometre tax based on three motives for taxing use and ownership of EVs: internalizing external cost, cost recovery of the public spending on the road sector, and fiscal taxation for raising revenue over and above what is justified by the two previous principles. We conclude that the optimal Pigouvian tax will be too low to justify the cost of a nationwide GPS-based kilometre tax for many years ahead, for which enforcement would drive the cost. Taxes collected based on roadside equipment systems in the big cities and surrounding highways would be a substantially cheaper way of internalizing most of the congestion cost. A shift from fuel taxes to national congestion taxes would, however, imply a large transfer of resources from the biggest city or cities to the rest of the country, where most of the kilometres are driven |
| Keywords: | Kilometre tax; Milage tax; Congestion charges; Equity; Infrastructure investments; Electric cars; Fiscal taxes; Benefit principle |
| JEL: | R12 R41 R42 |
| Date: | 2021–06–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:vtiwps:2021_003&r= |
| By: | Azim Shariff (Unknown); Jean-François Bonnefon (TSE - Toulouse School of Economics - UT1 - Université Toulouse 1 Capitole - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Iyad Rahwan (Unknown) |
| Abstract: | Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) promise of a multi-trillion-dollar industry that revolutionizes transportation safety and convenience depends as much on overcoming the psychological barriers to their widespread use as the technological and legal challenges. The first AV-related traffic fatalities have pushed manufacturers and regulators towards decisions about how mature AV technology should be before the cars are rolled out in large numbers. We discuss the psychological factors underlying the question of how safe AVs need to be to compel consumers away from relying on the abilities of human drivers. For consumers, how safe is safe enough? Three preregistered studies (N = 4,566) reveal that the established psychological biases of algorithm aversion and the better-than-average effect leave consumers averse to adopting AVs unless the cars meet extremely potentially unrealistically high safety standards. Moreover, these biases prove stubbornly hard to overcome, and risk substantially delaying the adoption of life-saving autonomous driving technology. We end by proposing that, from a psychological perspective, the emphasis AV advocates have put on safety may be misplaced. |
| Keywords: | autonomous vehicles,automation,algorithm aversion,safety,illusory superiority |
| Date: | 2021–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03236635&r= |
| By: | Gunnar S. Eskeland (Norwegian School of Economics); Shiyu Yan (Aarhus University) |
| Abstract: | In addition to a longstanding CO2 component in fuel taxes, Norway has used two main policy instruments to decarbonise its car fleet. A CO2-differentiated registration tax gives strong and continuous incentives to buy cars with lower registered CO2 intensity (or higher fuel efficiency). Moreover, generous tax incentives, including registration tax and VAT exemptions, are applied to zero-emission cars, and have given Norway the highest electric vehicle sales in the world. This paper analyses effects of the two instruments (the vehicle registration tax and tax exemption) using an excellent and detailed data set. |
| Keywords: | co-benefits, Cost-benefit analysis, Distributional effects, environmental externality, Greenhouse gas emission reduction, low-emission vehicles, policy instruments, vehicule registration tax |
| JEL: | L62 Q54 Q41 H23 Q51 |
| Date: | 2021–06–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:envaaa:178-en&r= |
| By: | Jaller, Miguel; Rodier, Caroline; Zhang, Michael; Lin, Huachao; Lewis, Kathryn |
| Abstract: | There is a need to optimally allocate curb space-one of the scarcest resources in urban areas-to the different and growing needs of passenger and freight transport. Although there are plenty of linear miles of curbside space in every city, the growing adoption of ride-hailing services and the rise of e-commerce with its residential deliveries, and the increased number of micro-mobility services, have increased pressure on the already saturated transportation system. Traditional curbside planning strategies have relied on land-use based demand estimates to allocate access priority to the curb (e.g., pedestrian and transit for residential areas, commercial vehicles for commercial and industrial zones). In some locales, new guidelines provide ideas on flexible curbside management, but lack the systems to gather and analyze the data, and optimally and dynamically allocate the space to the different users and needs. This study conducted a comprehensive literature review on several topics related to curb space management, discussing various users (e.g., pedestrians, bicycles, transit, taxis, and commercial freight vehicles), summarizing different experiences, and focusing the discussion on Complete Street strategies. Moreover, the authors reviewed the academic literature on curbside and parking data collection, and simulation and optimization techniques. Considering a case study around the downtown area in San Francisco, the authors evaluated the performance of the system with respect to a number of parking behavior scenarios. In doing so, the authors developed a parking simulation in SUMO following a set of parking behaviors (e.g., parking search, parking with off-street parking information availability, double-parking). These scenarios were tested in three different (land use-based) sub-study areas representing residential, commercial and mixed-use. View the NCST Project Webpage |
| Keywords: | Engineering, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Parking, curbside management, simulation, congestion, emissions, travel distances |
| Date: | 2021–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:itsdav:qt3jn371hw&r= |
| By: | Xuemei Zheng (School of Economics, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu, China); Flavio Menezes (School of Economics, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia); Xiaofeng Zheng (Industrial Bank Company Ltd., Taiyuan, China); Chengkuan Wu (School of Economics, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu, China) |
| Abstract: | It is widely recognized that Electric vehicles (EVs) will play a crucial role in the electrification of transport, which is necessary for reaching a net-zero emissions economy. This recognition is reflected in the number of initiatives introduced worldwide to promote the EV industry, ranging from purchase subsidies to the provision of charging infrastructure and direct industry assistance. In this context, the Chinese government introduced a comprehensive program of government subsidies to support the sale of EVs. This paper estimates the impacts of these subsidies on EV sales in China using the difference-in-differences (DID) and propensity score matching (PSM) approach. Based on the panel data at city level from 2009 to 2018, we show that subsidies were the major contributor to the increase in EV sales. Our results suggest that the provision of infrastructure such as charging piles is also an important contributing factor. These findings are robust across model specifications and regression approaches. The heterogeneity analysis indicates that the treatment effect is heterogeneous across EV types, city sizes and regions. Our results provide empirical support for the current policy settings designed to promote EV sales in China. |
| Keywords: | Electric vehicles, subsidy policies, difference-in-differences approach, China. |
| JEL: | Q48 C13 C54 |
| Date: | 2021–06–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qld:uq2004:645&r= |
| By: | Chakraborty, Debapriya; Buch, Koral; Tal, Gil |
| Abstract: | Total cost of ownership (TCO) studies are generally used as a tool to understand how and when plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) technology will reach cost parity with conventional fuel vehicles. Post cost-parity, the PEV market should be able to sustain without government intervention. The researchers present here a detailed analysis of vehicle manufacturing costs and market-level TCO accounting for technology uncertainties, behavioral heterogeneity, and key decision parameters of automakers. Using the estimates of the vehicle manufacturing costs, they estimate the cost of electrification of California’s LDV fleet to achieve the state’s net-zero emission goal by 2045. The results suggest that PEVs may not be cost competitive even in 2030 without stronger policy support and automakers initiative. Moreover, TCO is not a single number, and the cost of electrification will vary across the population based on the cost of vehicles available in the market, their charging capabilities at home and public, and energy costs. The TCO estimates and the cost of fleet electrification analysis not only has important implications for policymakers but can also offer a foundation for understanding the effect of market dynamics on the cost-competitiveness of the PEV technology. View the NCST Project Webpage |
| Keywords: | Engineering, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Total cost of ownership, zero emission vehicles, teardown analysis, market segments |
| Date: | 2021–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:itsdav:qt48c2z787&r= |
| By: | KUTSUZAWA Ryuji; AKAI Nobuo; TAKEMOTO Toru |
| Abstract: | This paper makes an attempt to estimate the effect of different levels of urban compactness on travelling distance and time for various means of transportation, such as on foot, public transportation, or by car, in the compact cities where population is concentrated in the center of the cities. The travelling distance is shorter in the cities with high compactness where the residents are concentrated in the center of cites, because the scale of the urban area of the cities is smaller, and, as a result, the travelling time is longer where the means of transportation is public transportation or on foot, while the travelling time by car is smaller, and it is expected that urban compactness eventually contributes to maintaining the health of residents, and reducing both energy consumption and the environmental burden. In this case, the level of urban compactness is an endogenous variable, which is influenced by the public transportation networks such as rail or bus, and the estimation by Ordinary Least Square (OLS) analysis might be biased by endogeneity. In addition, the effect of the level of urban compactness on the travelling time for various means of transportation may be different depending on age, sex, occupation and form of employment. Therefore, we estimate the effect of "Normalized Standard Distance" (NSD), the indicator of the effect of urban compactness on the travelling distance and travelling time for various means of transportation, including on foot, public transportation (railroad, bus) or car by using instrumental variables for extracting the endogeneity bias. We also estimate effects of NSD on the travelling distance and time, focusing on age, sex, occupation and form of employment. |
| Date: | 2021–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:rdpsjp:21025&r= |
| By: | Lindgren Erik; Per Pettersson-Lidbom; Bjorn Tyrefors |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we analyze the effect of transport infrastructure investments in railways on three measures of local economic activity: real nonagricultural income, agricultural land values and population size. As a testing ground, we use data from a new historical database that includes annual panel data on approximately 2,400 Swedish geographical units, i.e., local governments, during the period 1860-1917. We use a staggered event study design that is robust to treatment effect heterogeneity. Importantly, we find extremely large reduced-form effects of having access to railways. For real nonagricultural income, the cumulative treatment effect is approximately 120% after 30 years. Therefore, this effect is 20 times larger than most reduced-form effects found in previous works on the effect of transport infrastructure on economic activity. Equally important, we also show that our reduced-form effect reflects growth rather than a reorganization of existing economic activity. |
| Date: | 2021–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2106.00348&r= |