Recreational Leasing of Alaska Commercial Halibut Quota: The Early Years of the GAF Program in Alaska

The Pacific Halibut Catch Sharing Plan formalized the process for allocating halibut between the Alaska commercial and recreational charter sectors. It included a new program intended to allow for “flexibility” through inter-sectoral trading, permitting charter operators to lease commercial halibut pounds to relax client harvest restrictions. Here we evaluate the first two years of lease market activity and participation. Participation from some commercial quota holders in the lease market suggests that the program provided beneficial flexibility; in fact, the number of transfers to the charter sector was greater than transfers within the commercial sector for some quota types. We also identified a high proportion of self-leasers. However, transfers to the charter sector were on average smaller than within-sector commercial transfers, and total poundage leased by the charter sector was low compared with commercial transfers. Usage of leased quota by the recreational charter sector enables the harvest of larger fish or additional fish, and provides flexibility in catch composition on halibut closure days. Finally, the value-per-pound may be higher in the charter sector, as commercial-to-charter transfer prices approached the commercial ex-vessel price.     

Users of a regional telephone-based traveler information system – a study of TravInfo™ users in the San Francisco Bay Area

This paper reports the results of a 1998 survey carried out among a small sample of people who had called the TravInfo Travel Advisory Telephone System (TATS) in April 1997 looking for current information about traffic conditions in the San Francisco Bay Area. The survey employed a series of tradeoff questions designed to identify the specific attributes of the information that the respondents felt to be most important, and to estimate the relative values that these users had for various possible information improvements. Despite the small size of the sample, it proved feasible to investigate how the implicit valuations placed on each attribute of the service (update frequency, extent of road coverage, and level of customization) varied among different user segments. For the most part, respondents appeared to value basic enhancements – those that establish an initial quality differential above the baseline set by free broadcast traffic information – more than they value further subsequent improvements. Overall, more frequent information updates are the highest priority among the range of possible enhancements explored in the survey, followed by an extension of coverage to include major arterials in addition to freeways. However, the evidence suggests relatively little value in door-to-door coverage – that is, coverage of streets beyond the freeway and major arterial networks. This research produced some estimates of the average monetary values ("willingness to pay") that the sample of current users attached to information improvements of various kinds. While these values varied among subgroups in ways that fit a priori expectations, it is not clear whether they provide an unbiased picture of the users' absolute levels of willingness to pay, such that they could be used reliably to inform (for example) information pricing decisions. The value of this research lies more clearly in the light it sheds on the relative structure of user preferences, and on the variations in preferences between information attributes and market segments. Overall, the authors conclude that the prospects for self-sustaining ATIS services are unclear. In response to a direct question, a majority of users (perhaps influenced by a strategic bias) indicated that they were unwilling to pay for ATIS services; some of these same people, however, indicated later that they might indeed be willing to buy a particular enhanced ATIS package, in direct competition with free broadcast services.     

Climate–ocean variability and Pacific hake: A geostatistical modeling approach

Climate forcing of the California Current has been known to impact the distribution and abundance of a number of local fish populations, but the mechanisms involved remain poorly understood. Climate metrics such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) are usually used to represent climate processes and direct links are made between climate forcing and production variability. This involves aggregation of impacts across large spatial scales and range of species. However, fluctuations in productivity are often the result of changes in physical habitat. In order to fully understand the relationship between climate and productivity, habitat changes should be addressed. In this study we use a geostatistical approach to quantify adult Pacific hake habitat during different climate regimes. Several authors have suggested that the distribution and intensity of the sub-surface poleward flow (the undercurrent) plays a key role in defining adult hake habitat along the west coast of North America. Here we build a model designed to predict hake habitat distribution in space based on sub-surface poleward flow distribution and bottom depth. Our results show that hake habitat expands in 1998 El Niño year compared to 1995. Given the important predatory role that hake plays in the CC, the amount and distribution of adult hake habitat has large implications for the Pacific Northwest food web and could thus serve as an ecosystem indicator representing important physical–biological interactions. Spatially based ecosystem indicators such as the one we develop here address two important yet neglected areas in the ‘Ecosystem Indicators debate’: the importance of developing metrics explicitly representing spatial and environmental processes shaping ecosystem structure. Without these, our power to fully describe ecosystems will be limited.     

停车收费合理定价--基于需求的旧金山停车定价模式评价

除少数能够找到便宜停车位的幸运驾驶人外,价格过低和过度拥挤的路内停车位给每个人都制造了难题;其他所有为寻找可用停车位而巡游的驾驶人因此浪费了时间和燃料,导致交通拥堵并且污染空气。价格过高和占用率过低的路内停车位同样存在问题,当路内停车位闲置时,商家失去潜在的顾客,员工失去工作,而城市失去税收。为了解决这些问题,旧金山启动了SFpark项目,通过价格调整实现每个街区有1~2个可用停车位的目标。为了衡量价格如何影响路内停车位占用率,根据项目第一年内超过5000次价格和占用率变动数据计算价格需求弹性。价格需求弹性的平均值为-0.4,但是随时间、地点及其他因素大幅变化。在第一年内平均停车价格下降1%,因此,SFpark调整了停车价格但总体上并未涨价。首次使用测量出的占用率估计路内停车的需求弹性,同时也首次评价随时间和地点而变化的定价模式以用于路内停车管理。指出旧金山可以通过增加驾驶人对变动停车价格的意识,减少残疾标志的滥用以及引入季节性价格调整来改进该项目。其他城市可吸纳绩效停车定价作为拥挤收费的一种形式。