nep-tre New Economics Papers
on Transport Economics
Issue of 2022‒02‒14
seven papers chosen by
Erik Teodoor Verhoef
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

  1. Forensic Expertise in the Case of Road Traffic Accidents By Cosmin Butura
  2. Assessment of Requirements, Costs, and Benefits of Providing Charging Facilities for Battery-Electric Heavy-Duty Trucks at Safety Roadside Rest Areas By Burke, Andrew
  3. Profit Margins in U.S. Domestic Airline Routes By Hakan Yilmazkuday
  4. Analysis of Performance of Drivers and Usage of Overtime Hours: A Case Study of a Higher Educational Institution By K. C. Sanjeevani Perera
  5. Purchasing decisions on alternative fuel vehicles within the agent-based model By Arkadiusz Jędrzejewski; Katarzyna Sznajd-Weron; Jakub Pawłowski; Anna Kowalska-Pyzalska
  6. Where the Crosswalk Ends: Mapping Crosswalk Coverage via Satellite Imagery in San Francisco By Moran, Marcel E.
  7. Building Bridges: The Effect of Major Infrastructure Development on Trade By Persson, Maria; Soegaard, Christian; Welander Tärneberg, Anna

  1. By: Cosmin Butura (Dimitrie Cantemir Christian University of Bucharest, Romania)
    Abstract: In a growing world of population, the world economy and air pollution, urban and rural agglomeration by motor vehicles is caused by the factors stated. Numerous road safety studies have been carried out worldwide, showing that the only means of transport with the lowest mortality rate remain airplanes, ships and trains. Even if the issue of aggressive pollution by driver overcrowding has been asked at the level of international institutions, we cannot talk about a restriction of the human right to enjoy his personal property. This overpopulation has led to the decimation of regulations, conduct and laws governing urban and rural traffic by encouraging citizens to use vehicles with CO2 emissions as low as possible or even electric, bicycles, mopeds, and electric scooters, etc. However, the environment is not the only problem facing large cities, but rather another major problem being the lack of road infrastructure, but exactly the original streets and boulevards are no longer coping with car surpluses. This aspect has forced, in economic developed cities, acceleration of inventions in the field by: bridges, suspended variants or underground passages, motorways and unique boulevards (for example 6 strips per one). Even if there were numerous efforts to reduce the number of cars, it continues to grow daily, the factors being multiple, and traffic accidents in traffic are exceeded. Are we asking why there are still road accidents, given that we are in the century of speed, state-of-the-art technology? Well, if the computers itself produce system errors, then we understand that the human being is the only computer that produces errors that are impossible to prevented. Although there are numerous appearances in the showrooms of large motor vehicles that promise their endowment with advanced artificial intelligence, the social status of each country in the world differs, which makes it impossible to acquire all drivers. So, road accidents cannot be eliminated, they will only be in a continuous prevention, in order to reduce their number and at the same time increasing the safety of pedestrians and drivers. That is why in this paper I will talk about how a forensic expertise is achieved in the case of road accidents.
    Keywords: accident, infrastructure, forensics, expertise, technology, safety
    Date: 2021–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smo:lpaper:0057&r=
  2. By: Burke, Andrew
    Abstract: The objective of this research was to determine the possibilities for and barriers to the provision of battery charging infrastructure for heavy-duty electric trucks at roadside rest areas in California. The initial sections of the report deal with the prospects for battery-electric long-haul trucks and the battery technology needed to make those electric trucks practical and the market for them to be successful. Simulations of trucks using present lithium battery technology indicated that for a range of 600 miles, the battery pack would need to store about1200 kWh. It is not practical to fit a battery of that size on the tractor of the truck. Another approach is to design a truck with a 300 mile range and plan to partially charge the battery once or twice during the day at rest areas. The truck could also be charged overnight at the rest areas. The total range per day could be 600 miles or more. The partial charges would put 65% of the capacity of the battery in at the 1C rate (a 60 minute charge). A 450-500 kW charging facility would be needed at the rest areas. The 300 mile range electric truck could operate much like the diesel truck with the driver taking 60 minute breaks every 200-225 miles to charge the battery. The cost analysis of the 300 mile truck indicates its TCO is less than that of the diesel truck. In California, there are Low Carbon Fuel Standards (LCFS) credits to reduce the costs to operate the charging facility. If applicable, the LCFS station credits ($/yr) can be as much as $65k/yr per charger up to the total cost of the facility in about five years. The LCFS electricity credit would permit the cost of electricity to be only $.12/kWh to charge the batteries, because the price includes the LCFS credit to the utility. Hence with LCFS credits, the cost of operating the charging facility could be low in the early years while the market for electric long-haul trucks is developing. Caltrans maintains 86 safety rest areas along highways in California with 53 along Interstate highways. If battery charging facilities were established at about 35 of these rest areas, they would be about 100 miles apart or a little closer. Caltrans could assist private contractors in establishing a network of charging facilities for electric trucks. The total initial cost could be about $50 million. The major barrier to Caltrans participating in the battery charging project is that current law prohibits commercial businesses at the rest areas which would not allow charging for the electricity dispensed. There has been consideration in both California and at the federal level to relax the non-commercial requirements at the rest areas for battery charging because the need for a battery charging network is well recognized. View the NCST Project Webpage
    Keywords: Engineering, Long haul truck, battery-electric, rest stops, battery charging
    Date: 2022–02–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:itsdav:qt3c07s2jh&r=
  3. By: Hakan Yilmazkuday (Department of Economics, Florida International University)
    Abstract: This paper estimates profit margins in the U.S. airline industry at the domestic route level. The dynamic estimation methodology used not only is robust to any simultaneity/endogeneity bias by construction but also results in profit margin estimates that are highly consistent with actual profit data from the U.S. airline industry. Estimated annual profit margins have an average of about 13.3%, with a range between 2.7% and 42.9% across routes. A cross-route analysis further suggests that annual profit margins increase with the market share of the largest airline serving the route, whereas they decrease with airfare. Important policy suggestions follow.
    Keywords: Profit Margin, Price Elasticity, U.S. Domestic Routes
    JEL: C32 L93
    Date: 2021–11
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fiu:wpaper:2125&r=
  4. By: K. C. Sanjeevani Perera
    Abstract: This study attempted to analyze whether there is a relationship between the performance of drivers and the number of overtime hours worked by them. The number of overtime hours worked by the drivers in the pool for the years 2017 and 2018 were extracted from the overtime registers and feedback received on the performance of drivers from staff members who frequently traveled in the University vehicles were used for this study. The overall performance of a driver was decided by taking the aggregate of marks received by him for the traits: skillfulness, patience, responsibility, customer service and care for the vehicle. The type of vehicle the driver is assigned for is also taken into account in the analysis of this study. The study revealed that there is no significant relationship between the performance of the drivers and the number of overtime hours worked by them but the type of vehicle and the condition of the vehicle affects attracting long journeys to them which enable them to earn more overtime hours.
    Date: 2021–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2112.15447&r=
  5. By: Arkadiusz Jędrzejewski; Katarzyna Sznajd-Weron; Jakub Pawłowski; Anna Kowalska-Pyzalska
    Abstract: We develop an empirically grounded agent-based model to explore the purchasing decisions of mutually interacting agents (consumers) between three types of alternative fuel vehicles. We calibrate the model with recently published empirical data on consumer preferences towards such vehicles. Furthermore, running the Monte Carlo simulations, we show possible scenarios for the development of the alternative fuel vehicle market depending on the marketing strategies employed.
    Keywords: Agent-based model; Diffusion; Alternative fuel vehicles
    Date: 2022
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ahh:wpaper:worms2201&r=
  6. By: Moran, Marcel E.
    Keywords: Social and Behavioral Sciences
    Date: 2022–01–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:itsrrp:qt67447864&r=
  7. By: Persson, Maria (Department of Economics, Lund University); Soegaard, Christian (Department of Economics, University of Warwick); Welander Tärneberg, Anna (Centre for Economic Demography, Lund University)
    Abstract: We provide evidence of a positive effect of major infrastructure development on international trade, using the opening of the fixed link between Denmark and Sweden in 2000 (The Oresund Bridge) as a quasi-natural experiment. Our Synthetic Control Method (SCM) constructs a counterfactual Danish-Swedish trade relationship, which represents bilateral trade in the absence of the bridge. Evaluating actual trade against its synthetic counterpart for the period 2001-2008 shows that Danish-Swedish trade was 24.6% larger than it would have been in the absence of the bridge using our preferred specification. The result is robust to standard sensitivity checks. We supplement our analysis with a standard Difference-in-differences (DiD) estimator, which uses fixed effects. The DiD estimator yields a slightly larger trade effect of 26.7%, and is robust to a number of sensitivity analyses, including estimation at the product level. Both our SCM and DiD point to the trade-boosting effects being gradual.
    Keywords: Fixed link; bridge; tunnel; transport infrastructure; trade; Synthetic Control Method; Difference-in-differences
    JEL: F14 F15
    Date: 2022–02–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lunewp:2022_003&r=

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