Exploring senior officials’ policy beliefs regarding sustainable transportation

This study examines the policy beliefs of officials involved in developing and implementing sustainable transportation policies. It is found that officials tend to have stronger beliefs in the success of policies that impact less on personal freedoms of the public, and in particular, in policies that attract public support than force options upon them. It was also found that policy beliefs are positively related to officials’ seniority.     

I can’t believe your attitude: a joint estimation of best worst attitudes and electric vehicle choice

The number of conventionally fuelled motor vehicles in use is increasing worldwide despite warnings about finite fossil fuel and the detrimental impacts of burning such fuels. While electric vehicles, the subject of much research, generate far less emissions and offer the potential for power from renewable sources, they are yet to significantly penetrate the market. Tangible barriers such as price and vehicle range still exist, but consumer attitudes also drive behaviour. This paper examines attributes in a framework relatively new to transportation and energy policy; best–worst scaling. This method is widely considered an improvement over traditional methods of eliciting attitudes and beliefs, where respondents select attitudes they find best or worst from a set of attitudinal statements. To avoid potential endogeneity bias, we jointly model attitudes and choice for the first time with best–worst data. It is found that energy crisis, air quality and climate change concerns influence behaviour with respect to vehicle range and that travel behaviour change and forms of government incentives are needed influences on behaviour with respect to vehicle emissions. It is argued that correctly modelling attitudes reduces the error term of the vehicle choice model and provides policy makers with an improved lens for assessing behaviour. Additionally, the methods described within can easily be adapted to other policy scenarios.     

Transportation in suburbia: Trends in attitudes,behaviors and policy preferences in Orange County,California

This paper analyzes transportation attitudes, behaviors and policy preferences in a suburban region. The focus of the study is Orange County, which has experienced rapid growth and industrialization in recent decades. The results from the 1989 Orange County Annual Survey indicate that most residents perceive traffic to be the most serious problem facing the area, and most residents are dissatisfied with the current freeways. Over time, the trend is increased perceptions of traffic problems, However, there is little evidence that residents have changed their driving habits in recent years and there is considerable opposition to new transportation taxes and policies aimed at reducing traffic congestion. These trends are related to opposition to change by affluent suburban residents and to distrust of local government. Traffic attitudes and conservativism appear to play a minor role in predicting current driving habits and policy preferences. The results have important implications for future efforts to improve suburban traffic.     

The social context of informal commuting: Slugs, strangers and structuration

Despite considerable interest in the role of social interactions and social context on transportation, there have been very few attempts to explore specific cases of social interaction influencing transportation systems. This paper explores the social practice of slugging, an informal system of carpooling in the Washington, DC area. Slugging emerged in response to the establishment of Virginia’s High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes in the early 1970s, as single drivers picked up riders alongside the road (slugs) in order to meet the requirements for driving in the less congested HOV lanes. Drawing on the work of sociologist Anthony Giddens, as well as the sociological insights of Georg Simmel and Stanley Milgram, we suggest that the practice of slugging highlights the processes of institutionalization and structuration. This paper details how the region’s mass transportation policies and urban culture have combined to result in an institutionalized practice with particular norms and logics of behavior. We conclude that looking at specific cases where social context has affected transportation, like slugging, could provide useful insights on the impact of social context on transportation policies and systems.     

The best of times and the worst of times: A new best–worst measure of attitudes toward public transport experiences

Attitudes play an important role in determining individual transit behaviour and the measurement of attitudes is relied on by public transit authorities’ world over. Given their role in behaviour and policy making, the accurate measurement of attitudes is of critical importance. Traditional satisfaction scales are prone to bias and on their own they are only a partial measure of attitudes. Given that satisfaction scales have been used to assist with large scale transport infrastructure investment decisions, to aid policy makers examining reactions to alternative policy changes and reform, and to measure the success of new initiatives, deriving robust satisfaction scales should be of critical importance. This paper introduces a dual version of best–worst scaling as an alternative measure of satisfaction. Best–worst scaling is free of the biases inherent in traditional response scales and is ideal for handling the comparative evaluation of large amount of attributes, particularly those which are inherently qualitative. The paper makes a further innovative contribution by proposing a model structure for the joint estimation of satisfaction and importance. Our model shows a better delineation between the attributes used to measure attitudes towards bus use and a more detailed understanding of the relationship between importance and satisfaction; enabling transport operators to better understand what counts most and assess their performance.     

Applying behavioural theories to studying the influence of climate change on young people’s future travel intentions

Transport policy in the UK is seeking to promote the development of low carbon transport technology and to encourage people to choose to use low carbon travel options. This paper draws on existing behavioural theories to study young people’s travel behaviour intentions and the influence on these from their knowledge of, and willingness to act on, climate change. The study involved a series of focus groups with young people aged 11-18 years, where attitudes to transport modes, attitudes towards climate change and travel behaviour intentions were discussed. Knowledge and values are established as the key determinants of young people’s attitudes and behaviour intentions towards transport in the context of climate change. More specifically it is established that young people’s values emphasise speed and freedom and that it is important to young people that the mode of transport they choose is reflective of the image they want to portray.     

Crowdsourced data for bicycling research and practice

ABSTRACT

Cities are promoting bicycling for transportation as an antidote to increased traffic congestion, obesity and related health issues, and air pollution. However, both research and practice have been stalled by lack of data on bicycling volumes, safety, infrastructure, and public attitudes. New technologies such as GPS-enabled smartphones, crowdsourcing tools, and social media are changing the potential sources for bicycling data. However, many of the developments are coming from data science and it can be difficult evaluate the strengths and limitations of crowdsourced data. In this narrative review we provide an overview and critique of crowdsourced data that are being used to fill gaps and advance bicycling behaviour and safety knowledge. We assess crowdsourced data used to map ridership (fitness, bike share, and GPS/accelerometer data), assess safety (web-map tools), map infrastructure (OpenStreetMap), and track attitudes (social media). For each category of data, we discuss the challenges and opportunities they offer for researchers and practitioners. Fitness app data can be used to model spatial variation in bicycling ridership volumes, and GPS/accelerometer data offer new potential to characterise route choice and origin-destination of bicycling trips; however, working with these data requires a high level of training in data science. New sources of safety and near miss data can be used to address underreporting and increase predictive capacity but require grassroots promotion and are often best used when combined with official reports. Crowdsourced bicycling infrastructure data can be timely and facilitate comparisons across multiple cities; however, such data must be assessed for consistency in route type labels. Using social media, it is possible to track reactions to bicycle policy and infrastructure changes, yet linking attitudes expressed on social media platforms with broader populations is a challenge. New data present opportunities for improving our understanding of bicycling and supporting decision making towards transportation options that are healthy and safe for all. However, there are challenges, such as who has data access and how data crowdsourced tools are funded, protection of individual privacy, representativeness of data and impact of biased data on equity in decision making, and stakeholder capacity to use data given the requirement for advanced data science skills. If cities are to benefit from these new data, methodological developments and tools and training for end-users will need to track with the momentum of crowdsourced data.     

Air transportation in a carbon constrained world: Long-term dynamics of policies and strategies for mitigating the carbon footprint of commercial aviation

With increasing demand for air transportation worldwide and decreasing marginal fuel efficiency improvements, the contribution of aviation to climate change relative to other sectors is projected to increase in the future. As a result, growing public and political pressures are likely to further target air transportation to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. The key challenges faced by policy makers and air transportation industry stakeholders is to reduce aviation greenhouse gas emissions while sustaining mobility for passengers and time-sensitive cargo as well as meeting future demand for air transportation in developing and emerging countries. This paper examines five generic policies for reducing the emissions of commercial aviation; (1) technological efficiency improvements, (2) operational efficiency improvements, (3) use of alternative fuels, (4) demand shift and (5) carbon pricing (i.e. market-based incentives). In order to evaluate the impacts of these policies on total emissions, air transport mobility, airfares and airline profitability, a system dynamics modeling approach was used. The Global Aviation Industry Dynamics (GAID) model captures the systemic interactions and the delayed feedbacks in the air transportation system and allows scenarios testing through simulations. For this analysis, a set of 34 scenarios with various levels of aggressiveness along the five generic policies were simulated and tested. It was found that no single policy can maintain emissions levels steady while increasing projected demand for air transportation. Simulation results suggest that a combination of the proposed policies does produce results that are close to a “weak” sustainability definition of increasing supply to meet new demand needs while maintaining constant or increasing slightly emissions levels. A combination of policies that includes aggressive levels of technological and operations efficiency improvements, use of biofuels along with moderate levels of carbon pricing and short-haul demand shifts efforts achieves a 140% increase in capacity in 2024 over 2004 while only increasing emissions by 20% over 2004. In addition, airline profitability is moderately impacted (10% reduction) compared to other scenarios where profitability is reduced by over 50% which pose a threat to necessary investments and the implementation of mitigating measures to reduce CO2 emissions. This study has shown that an approach based on a portfolio of mitigating measures and policies spanning across technology and operational improvements, use of biofuels, demand shift and carbon pricing is required to transition the air transportation industry close to an operating point of environmental and mobility sustainability.     

Modeling risks and uncertainties in residents’ license choice behaviors under a vehicle restriction policy

Understanding residents’ perception and reaction to vehicle restriction policies is significant for transportation management. However, few studies have examined it from a behavioral and disaggregated perspective, particularly from people’s responses to uncertainties in choices, and their consequent behaviors under potential risks. This paper proposes a multi-level nested logit method to model sequential choice behaviors considering uncertainties under a vehicle license restriction policy. Prospect theory is applied, where a novel reference point is proposed based on instances of ‘whether a risk happens’ rather than a hard number which is difficult to obtain in reality. A case study in Guangzhou, China is presented, where a vehicle restriction policy has been applied for three years. Residents’ attitudes and preferences under uncertainties and different risks are revealed, and these factors are significant in predicting people’s future decisions while policy changes.     

A dynamic modeling approach to highway sustainability: Strategies to reduce overall impact

The need for sustainable development is increasing as the industrial and service activities keep putting such a strain on the natural functions of the Earth, thus the ability of the planet’s to sustain future generations. Since most of the industrial and service activities are provided via transportation, it is one of the most crucial elements of sustainable development. In this paper, US highway system sustainability problem is studied. System dynamics modeling approach is employed due to the causal relationships and feedback loops that are observed in the problem structure. The reference mode is considered as the increasing CO₂ emission trend. The objective is to meet the Liberman and Warner Climate Act’s targets by 2050. Three potential strategies for policy making are tested with the developed dynamic simulation: fuel efficiency, public transportation and electric vehicle usage. The results indicate that hybrid implementation of individual policies has a crucial impact on the success of policy making.     

A virtual environment for the formulation of policy packages

The interdependence and complexity of socio-technical systems and availability of a wide variety of policy measures to address policy problems make the process of policy formulation difficult. In order to formulate sustainable and efficient transport policies, development of new tools and techniques is necessary. One of the approaches gaining ground is policy packaging, which shifts focus from implementation of individual policy measures to implementation of combinations of measures with the aim of increasing efficiency and effectiveness of policy interventions by increasing synergies and reducing potential contradictions among policy measures. In this paper, we describe the development of a virtual environment for the exploration and analysis of different configurations of policy measures in order to build policy packages. By developing systematic approaches it is possible to examine more alternatives at a greater depth, decrease the time required for the overall analysis, provide real-time assessment and feedback on the effect of changes in the configurations, and ultimately form more effective policies. The results from this research demonstrate the usefulness of computational approaches in addressing the complexity inherent in the formulation of policy packages. This new approach has been applied to the formulation of policies to advance sustainable transportation.     

Assessment of policies and detection of unintended effects: Guiding principles for the consideration of methods and tools in policy-packaging

Single policies or entire policy packages are often assessed using different methods aiming at a quantification of effects as well as the detection of undesired outcomes. The knowledge of potential impacts is essential to take informed policy actions. Hence, there is a constant need for efficient assessment approaches to support policy decision-making. A broad range of such assessment methods is used in policymaking. Some of them are using quantitative data; others are characterized by qualitative information, observations or opinions. Practical experiences with transport policy prove that these methods all have their pros and cons, but none of them are able to detect the full range of effects. This leads to important questions this article deals with, such as what are the strengths and limitations of the different tools and methods for assessing impacts, and how should different approaches be integrated into the policymaking processes?We analyze the ability of assessment methods to detect different kinds of intended and unintended effects, and introduce the concepts of structurally open (mainly qualitative) and structurally closed (mainly quantitative) methods. It is argued that these concepts support making the pros and cons of the tools and methods more explicit and, thus, allow integrating the different tools and methods into the process of policy packaging. Based on a policy package example, we provide practical recommendations on how to integrate different assessment methods adequately and show that both quantitative and qualitative tools should be used in different phases of the process. The main recommendation is to alternate the application of assessment methods with structurally open methods used in the beginning and the end of the policymaking process and applying structurally closed methods in between.     

Environmental invitingness for transport-related cycling in middle-aged adults: A proof of concept study using photographs

IntroductionCurrent evidence on associations between modifiable environmental characteristics and transport-related cycling remains inconsistent. Most studies on these associations used questionnaires to determine environmental perceptions, but such tools may be subject to bias due to unreliable recall. Moreover, questionnaires only measure separate environmental characteristics, while real environments are a combination of different characteristics. To overcome these limitations, the present proof of concept study used panoramic photographs of cycling environments to capture direct responses to the physical environment. We examined which depicted environmental characteristics were associated to environments’ invitingness for transportation cycling. Furthermore, interactions with gender and participants’ cycling behavior were examined.MethodsFifty-nine middle-aged adults were recruited through purposeful convenience sampling. During a home visit, participants took part in a structured interview assessing demographics and PA during the preceding seven days, followed by an intuitive choice task and a (cognitive) rating task, which both measured 40 photographed environments’ invitingness to cycle along. Multi-level cross-classified analyses were conducted using MLwiN 2.26.ResultsBoth tasks’ multivariate results showed that presence of vegetation was identified as the most important environmental characteristic to invite people for engaging in transportation cycling, even when the amount of vegetation was relatively small. In the bivariate analyzes, some differences between results of the cognitive rating task and the intuitive choice task were found, showing that invitingness measured by the rating task was associated with environmental maintenance and cycling infrastructure, whereas invitingness determined by the choice task was associated with more traffic-oriented characteristics. Moreover, only for the choice task’s results, moderating effects of gender and participants’ cycling behavior in the preceding week were observed.ConclusionThe present study provides proof of concept that capturing people’s less cognitive, more intuitive responses to an environment’s invitingness for transport-related cycling may be important for revealing environment-behavior associations. If replicated in future studies using larger samples, results of our innovative measurements with photographs, especially those on vegetation, can complete the existing knowledge on which environmental characteristics are important for transportation cycling in adults and could form a basis to inform health promoters and local policy makers. However, future studies replicating our study method in larger samples and other population subgroups are highly encouraged. Moreover, causal relationships should be explored.     

Spatial impacts of road pricing: Accessibility, regional spillovers and territorial cohesion

Road pricing policies are gaining prominence in EU countries. These policies have positive impacts leading to mobility patterns which are socially and environmentally more desirable, but they also have negative impacts. One negative impact is to be found in regional accessibility, due to the increase in generalized transport costs. This study presents a methodology based on accessibility indicators and GIS to assess the accessibility impacts of a road pricing policy. The methodology was tested for the Spain’s road network considering two road pricing scenarios. It enables not only the more penalized regions to be identified but also negative road pricing spillover effects between regions. These effects are measured in terms of accessibility changes occurring in one region produced by charges implemented in another region. Finally, the study of accessibility disparities (by calculating inequality indexes for each of the scenarios considered), provides policymakers with useful information regarding the impact of road pricing policies from the point of view of territorial cohesion.     

A review of the evidence for induced travel and changes in transportation and environmental policy in the US and the UK

This paper reviews recent research into the demand inducing effects of new transportation capacity. We begin with a discussion of the basic theoretical background and then review recent research both in the UK and the US. Results of this research show strong evidence that new transportation capacity induces increased travel, both due to short run effects and long run changes in land use development patterns. While this topic has long been debated amongst transportation planners, the fundamental hypothesis and theory has long been apparent in studies of transportation economics and planning that evaluated different issues (e.g. travel time budgets and urban economic development effects). We summarize much of this work and relate the theoretical issues to recent empirical research. We then proceed to examine recent changes in transportation and environmental policy in the US and the UK. The role of the new knowledge of induced travel effects would be expected to lead to changes in the conduct of transportation and environmental policy. Changes in policy and implementation of those policies are still occurring and we provide some suggestions on how to move forward in these areas.     

Non-commuters: the people who walk to work or work at home

The paper focuses on the socioeconomic characteristics of workers at home and those who walk to work and these are compared with commuters (those who travel to work by motorized transportation). Understanding of such characteristics of these people is useful for purposes of designing policies that encourage these forms of "travel" to work, if it is believed desirable for planning or environmental purposes. For example, subsidizing public transportation may also have an impact on the proclivity to work at home or walk to work. Using a large census data set for Israel, separate subsamples are analyzed for heads of household and for their spouses. Metropolitan areas as well as peripheral urbanized areas are analyzed separately. Logit analysis is used to identify those variables that affect the likelihood of different groups of people to walk to work or to work at home.It is shown that walkers to work tend to be lower-income, less-educated people with lower asset ownership rates. Females are overrepresented amongst them, while "high-status" professionals are underrepresented. Workers at home appear to be a more complex group. They tend to have higher levels of education and wealth than commuters, but earn less on average. They include proportionately more females. The likelihood of working at home increases with home size and with ownership of some durable goods. The workers at home may in fact be comprised of two or more differing groups with contrasting characteristics, one higher-income and higher-educated, the other with lower socio-economic indicators. Because they may be a heterogeneous group, development of planning policies to encourage non-vehicle commuting may require different policy tools for the different subgroups.     

Climate change and the contribution of transport: Basic facts and the role of aviation

There is a world-wide consensus that climate change policy has to be intensified to achieve reduction goals set for 2020 and 2050. But it is heavily debated which contribution should be expected from the transport sector. It is often argued that in the transportation sector CO₂ marginal mitigation costs are higher such that – together with high growth of transport activities – the reduction targets for this sector should be relaxed. Green transport policy is contrasting this view and underlines that considerable reductions of climate gases in the transport sector are possible without risking economic prosperity. The aviation industry is in the focus of this discussion and first attempts are being made in the European Union to integrate aviation in an emission trading system. It will be shown that the impact of this policy will be very low in the medium term and that additional measures are necessary to create enough incentives for the aviation industry to exploit their reduction potential.     

Envisioning an emission diet: application of travel demand mechanisms to facilitate policy decision making

Emission reduction strategies are gaining attention as planning agencies work towards adherence to air quality conformity standards. Policymakers struggling to reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) must grapple with a growing number of travel demand policies. To consider any of these emerging demand mechanisms as a viable option to meet emission targets, planners and policymakers need tools to better understand the implications of such policies on travel behavior. In this paper we present an integrated multimodal travel demand and emission model of four policy strategies; presenting GHG and air pollutant reduction results at a very detailed level. Multiple policy outcomes are compared within a single modeling framework and study area. The results reveal that while no one demand mechanism is likely to reduce emissions to a level that meets policy-maker’s goals; a first-best pricing strategy that incorporates marginal social costs is the most effective emission reduction mechanism. Implementing such a mechanism may offer total emission reductions of up to 24 %. However, the efficacy of this strategy must be weighed against difficulties of establishing efficient pricing, a costly implementation, and substantial negative impacts to non-highway facilities. Decision makers must select a mixture of pricing and land use strategies to achieve emission goals on all road facilities.     

Modelling the effects of road pricing on traffic using ERP traffic data

Singapore’s Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) system involves time-variable charges which are intended to spread the morning traffic peak. The charges are revised every three months and thus induce regular motorists to re-think their travel decisions. ERP traffic data, captured by the system, provides a valuable source of information for studying motorists’ travel behaviour. This paper proposes a new modelling methodology for using these data to forecast short-term impacts of rate adjustment on peak period traffic volumes. Separate models are developed for different categories of vehicles which are segmented according to their demand elasticity with respect to road pricing. A method is proposed for estimating the maximum likelihood value of preferred arrival time (PAT) for each vehicle’s arrivals at a particular ERP gantry under different charging conditions. Iterative procedures are used in both model calibration and application. The proposed approach was tested using traffic datasets recorded in 2003 at a gantry located on Singapore’s Central Expressway (CTE). The model calibration and validation show satisfactory results.     

Transportation policy in the eighties

Urban transportation policy during the nineteen seventies has been characterized by attempts to deal with four major problems: 1) the minimization of environmental impacts of transport investments, 2) the alleviation of inequities in mobility, and financial burdens imposed upon some groups by earlier investments in capital intensive highway networks, 3) the accommodation of demands for public participation in transport decision-making, and 4) the precipitous rise of public transit operating costs. In this paper examples are given of policies which have been pursued in attempting to solve each of these problems. It is shown that policies designed to solve one of them have often intensified others. Thus, current policy is characterized by reliance upon very small-scale and timid plans and proposals. The eighties may see a return to large-scale and comprehensive transport plans, but these will not be exclusively physical or system plans. Rather, transportation plans in the eighties will include a balance among physical facilities, institutional arrangements, financial plans, and user incentives and disincentives. Several examples of such comprehensive policies are given in this paper.Paper prepared for presentation at the Fourth World Congress of Engineers and Architects in Tel Aviv, Israel, December, 1976.