The Downs–Thomson Paradox with responsive transit service

Downs (1962) and Thomson (1977) suggested that highway capacity expansion may produce counterproductive effects on the two-mode (auto and transit) transport system (Downs–Thomson Paradox). This paper investigates the occurrence of this paradox when transit authority can have different economic objectives (profit-maximizing or breakeven) and operating schemes (frequency, fare, or both frequency and fare). For various combinations of economic objectives and operating schemes, the interaction between highway expansion and transit service is explored, as well as its impact on travelers’ mode choices and travel utilities. Further, for each combination, the conditions for occurrence of the Downs–Thomson Paradox are established. We show that the paradox never occurs when transit authority is profit-maximizing, but it is inevitable when the transit authority is running to maximize travelers’ utility while maintaining breakeven. This is because the former transit authority tends to enhance transit service (e.g., raise frequency or reduce fare) when facing an expanded highway; and on the contrary, the latter tends to compromise transit service (e.g., reduce frequency or raise fare). Both analytical and numerical examples are provided to verify the theoretical results.     

Public transit and alternative fuels – The costs associated with using biodiesel and CNG in comparison to diesel for U.S. public transit systems

This study addresses the dearth of research that examines the impacts of alternative fuel use on operational costs of public transit in the U.S. Specifically, the study examines the impact on operational costs of shifting diesel gallons to biodiesel or to compressed natural gas (CNG) for an unbalanced panel of 269 public transit systems in the U.S. from 2008 through 2012, using an econometric cost function approach. We find that shifting all diesel gallons to biodiesel results in operational cost increases ranging from 1 to 12 percent, with smaller cost increases being realized with increases in system size. Shifting all diesel gallons to CNG results in operational cost increases between 5 and 10 percent – again with smaller impacts for larger systems. These findings suggest that there are some economies of using biodiesel and CNG with large scale production. That is, the cost increases associated with increased fuel prices, decreased fuel economy, increased maintenance costs, and increased fueling costs associated with biodiesel and CNG are mitigated somewhat by large scale production. The findings of this study suggest that increased operational costs are an important consideration in policies aimed at encouraging the use of alternative fuels by U.S. public transit systems.     

Transition choice probabilities and welfare analysis in random utility models with imperfect before–after correlation

Welfare in random utility models is used to be analysed on the basis of only the expectation of the compensating variation. De Palma and Kilani (De Palma, A., Kilani, K., 2011. Transition choice probabilities and welfare analysis in additive random utility models. Economic Theory 46(3), 427–454) have developed a framework for conditional welfare analysis which provides analytic expressions of transition choice probabilities and associated welfare measures. The contribution is of practical relevance in transportation because it allows to compute shares of shifters and non-shifters and attribute benefits to them in a rigorous way. In De Palma and Kilani (2011) the usual assumption of unchanged random terms before and after is made.The paper generalises the framework for conditional welfare analysis to cases of imperfect before–after association of the random terms. The joint before–after distribution of the random terms is introduced with postulated properties in terms of marginal distributions and covariance matrix. Analytic expressions, based on the probability density function and the cumulative distribution function of the joint before–after distribution, and simulation procedures for computation of the transition choice probabilities and the conditional expectations of the compensating variation are provided. Results are specialised for multinomial logit and probit. In the case without income effects, it is proved that the unconditional expectation of the compensating variation depends only on the marginal distributions.The theory is illustrated by a numerical example which refers to a multinomial logit applied to the choice of the transport mode with two specifications, one without and one with income effects. Results show that transition probabilities and conditional welfare measures are affected significantly by the assumption on the before–after correlation. The variability in the transition probabilities across transitions tends to decrease as the before–after correlation decreases. In the extreme case of independent random terms, the conditional expectations of the compensating variation tend to be close to the unconditional expectation.     

Modelling contact mode and frequency of interactions with social network members using the multiple discrete–continuous extreme value model

Communication patterns are an integral component of activity patterns and the travel induced by these activities. The present study aims to understand the determinants of the communication patterns (by the modes face-to-face, phone, e-mail and SMS) between people and their social network members. The aim is for this to eventually provide further insights into travel behaviour for social and leisure purposes. A social network perspective brings value to the study and modelling of activity patterns since leisure activities are influenced not only by traditional trip measures such as time and cost but also motivated extensively by the people involved in the activity. By using a multiple discrete-continuous extreme value model (Bhat, 2005), we can investigate the means of communication chosen to interact with a given social network member (multiple discrete choices) and the frequency of interaction by each mode (treated as continuous) at the same time. The model also allows us to investigate satiation effects for different modes of communication. Our findings show that in spite of people having increasingly geographically widespread networks and more diverse communication technologies, a strong underlying preference for face-to-face contact remains. In contrast with some of the existing work, we show that travel-related variables at the ego level are less important than specific social determinants which can be considered while making use of social network data.