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.     

中央政府在城市交通可持续发展中的角色

中国城市交通问题已经不仅仅是拥堵、噪音、尾气等地方层面的问题,它涉及宏观经济发展、农田保护、金融体系稳定、能源安全、碳排放等国家甚至国际层面的问题。由于这些溢出问题的存在,中央政府应重新审视其在城市交通方面的作用与职责。对此,世界银行提出,中央政府可从城市交通政策导向、公交发展支持、最佳实践奖励、交通绩效标杆与评估系统、交通投融资体制改革以及城市交通示范项目等方面发挥作用。大力发展高效的公共交通是中国可持续城市交通战略的核心工作,要在有效的商业运营前提下满足社会目标、保证服务质量。保持民营部门与公共部门之间的合作互补关系是中央和地方政府所应共同做出的努力。