Institutional constraints on transport policymaking: the case of company cars in Israel

Transportation analysis emphasizes the necessity to internalize the transport externalities of car usage through taxation. Yet taxation decisions are often made with non-transport goals in mind. In such cases, transport policies are made ‘by the way.’ This paper examines such a case: Israel’s taxation policy on company cars. It shows that current taxation policies result in increasing numbers of company cars and growing numbers of transport users who are not sensitive to the marginal cost of car use and make excessive use of the car. As a result, a significant portion of Travel Demand Management (TDM) measures cannot affect this group. The Israeli case of company car tax reform demonstrates the problematic effect of a policy that does not take its overall consequences on other policy fields into account and thereby impairs efforts to reduce the negative impacts of the transport system. Also, it demonstrates the importance of institutional aspects of transport policymaking.

Testing the decentralization effects of rail systems: Empirical findings from Israel

Many sustainable urban development approaches are based on mass public transportation ventures, especially railway development, which has been considered a panacea for the unfavorable effects of suburban development. But rail transit also improves accessibility to the fringes, thus encouraging an exodus to the suburbs. This paper explores suburbanization and sprawling effect of commuter rail transit on the rural exurbia of the Tel Aviv metropolis by analyzing its effect on residential location decisions. The findings indicate that the suburban rail system was a determinant factor in the location choice of households which migrated from the inner parts of the Tel Aviv metropolis, since it allowed them to maintain strong commuting connections to their residential origin. This suggests that rail transit, along with its potential to strengthen the inner cities, also accelerates suburbanization and counter urbanization.     

Light rail routing: do goals matter?

Decisions to fund light rail (LRT) have been critiqued as instrumentally irrational. This paper examines whether the seemingly more technical LRT routing decisions are instrumentally rational. To this end, we test whether routing decisions are made to address goals that are rationally derived from the challenges faced by the urban region. On the basis of a review of the literature, two rationales that underlie most of the stated goals are identified: providing service for the most heavily travelled and congested corridors and inducing development, and subsequently demand, in areas perceived to be underdeveloped or distressed and in areas that have deteriorated. In a survey of key respondents from 16 cities, we find that goals are only weakly correlated with the challenges. While most routes provide service on the most heavily demanded corridors, routing decisions are no less driven by a desire to cut pecuniary and transaction costs. For this reason existing rights of way are often preferred. This is explained by the intertwining of routing and funding decisions. The implications of these findings for evaluation techniques of LRT routes are discussed.     

Understanding the role of the forecast-maker in overestimation forecasts of policy impacts: The case of Travel Demand Management policies

Forecasting the impacts of a proposed policy is an important component of the transportation planning and decision making process. Although scientific tools are often used in transportation forecasts, biases and, more specifically, overestimations of the expected impact are often observed. This study explores the correlations between forecast-maker’s characteristics and forecast bias creation and reduction. The study examines two transport-related policies aiming at the reduction of car use: telecommuting and carsharing. Both are Travel Demand Management (TDM) policies, which attract much attention from transport experts. We tested the extent to which the forecast-maker’s beliefs about the policy at stake affected the forecast bias. We found that attitudes and beliefs associates not only with overestimation bias but also with its reduction over time. We also tested the extent to which the forecast-maker’s affiliation, the performing institute and the publication type were correlated with the biases of the forecast and with the forecaster attitudes and beliefs. These characteristics are intuitively used by the forecast user as tools to assess the ‘objectivity’ of the forecast, but our analysis found no association between these characteristics and the forecast bias.