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.     

What influences satisfaction and loyalty in public transport? A review of the literature

Public transport ridership retention is a challenge for many cities. To develop comprehensive strategies aimed at retaining riders, it is necessary to understand the aspects of public transport that influence users to become loyal to the system. This paper analyses relevant literature regarding the causes of satisfaction and loyalty in public transport. We find that the service factors most associated with satisfaction are on-board cleanliness and comfort, courteous and helpful behaviour from operators, safety, as well as punctuality and frequency of service. On the other hand, loyalty is associated with users’ perceptions of value-for-money, on-board safety and cleanliness, interactions with personnel and the image and commitment to public transport that users feels. Furthermore, the results elucidate that the concept of loyalty is best defined based on users’ intentions to continue using the service, their willingness to recommend it to others, their overall satisfaction, but also and most importantly, their image of and involvement with public transport. Public transport users who have a positive image of the agency and consider public transport an integral component of city life are more likely to demonstrate loyalty and act like ambassadors for public transport agencies.     

The effect of attitudes toward cars and public transportation on behavioral intention in commuting mode choice—A comparison across six Asian countries

This study investigated the contribution of psychological factors in explaining the choice of transportation mode in six Asian countries. Data were collected from 1118 respondents in Japan, Thailand, China, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines. The dependent variable was the intention to use one of three modes for work travel after getting a job: car, public transit, or other modes. The explanatory variables were three attitude factors taken from a previous study, including: 1/symbolic affective, reflecting affective motives of travel mode use; 2/instrumental, referring to functional attributes of travel modes; and 3/social orderliness which represents for environmental friendliness, safety, altruism, quietness et cetera. Several logit model estimates were made using the samples from the six countries separately and together. We obtained three main findings. First, attitude variables about the car were all significant determinants for the entire sample from Asian countries. Second, the social orderliness aspect of public transit was a common concern of respondents from developing countries in selecting this mode for work trips. Third, in countries in which the intent to use a car was not very high, attitude factors about the car were found to be significant determinants of the behavioral intention to commute by car but were less significant in countries in which the desire to use a car was high.     

The benefits to the public of vehicle legislation — Attempts to measure the unmeasurable

Although inevitably there are grey areas, a distinction may be drawn between environmental disbenefits arising from vehicles which cause annoyance, such as noise, or loss of peace and quiet, vibration, visual intrusion, severance, and those which endanger life and limb. Legislation implemented to reduce either category will inevitably generate costs.It is suggested that in evaluating legislation relating to environmental nuisance, attempts should be made carefully to measure the benefits, while for legislation when life and limb is involved a cost-effectiveness approach should be adopted. Methods currently available to measure environmental nuisance arising from vehicles, for example opinion surveys, observing the effect of changes in some independent indicator, and simulation exercises are critically examined. Using evidence from the Urban Motorway Committee Reports, Noise Advisory Council, Transport and Road Research Laboratory surveys on the effect of traffic in selected High Streets, and the Realistic Environment Assessment Laboratory, Social and Community Planning Research ping-pong technique, studies of house price differentials, and estimates of willingness-to-pay for exclusion facilities, an attempt is made to highlight the dilemma that while benefits of environmental nuisance legislation should be carefully weighed against the anti-pollution costs, techniques currently available for measuring such benefits are very underdeveloped.Paradoxically there is a far more clear-cut procedure for valuing benefits of policies affecting life and limb. Official accident evaluation policy in the U.K. is described, and legislation affecting life and limb is examined.Finally, difficulties of effectively enforcing legislation of both environmental nuisance and life and limb categories are illustrated.     

The benefits of improving public transport: a myth or reality?

As part of a research project completed some four years ago at Imperial College, London, a number of case studies were undertaken to examine the impacts that major improvements to the public transport system have on parallel road traffic. The three studies of major improvements to the public transport systems in three U.K. and German cities were: the Victoria Line in London; the extension of the U‐Bahn system in West Berlin (at the time of the study); and the S‐Bahn extension in Stuttgart. Each scheme is reviewed, with particular reference to the degree in which they have relieved congestion on the roads in the same corridor. This was examined simply to see whether or not public transport improvements are the only answer to traffic congestion, as is sometimes suggested. In the event, every scheme was a unique example in itself. The different conditions in each situation are presented and the actual impacts of the schemes assessed, based on the available information. The findings were rather different from the expectations. Only marginal relief from road traffic was recorded, with a substantial shift from buses to the improved rapid rail system. In the case of Stuttgart, for example, traffic growth on parallel roads was actually higher than the average growth on all city roads, though for other reasons.     

Spatial analysis of the competitiveness of the high-speed train and air transport: The role of access to terminals in the Madrid–Barcelona corridor

This paper analyzes the effect of access and egress time to transport terminals over the spatial competiveness of the high-speed train (HST) in the Madrid–Barcelona (Spain) corridor, one of the densest airline domestic markets in the world. Applying spatial data from 2010 provided by a geographical information system (GIS) to a mode choice model estimated with sample travelers in this corridor, the present study examines whether and how the level-of-service of transport terminals spatially affects the competitiveness or modal distribution of HST and air transport in the provinces of Madrid and Barcelona; and, in particular, the degree of competitiveness that can be accrued by the access time provided by private car and transit in different market segments, especially mandatory and leisure trips. In a number of urban zones near train stations and airports, terminal accessibility clearly favors one transport mode in comparison to the other. Improving terminal accessibility via private car or public transit not only affects the relative access to terminals, but also represents a key strategy for readjusting the market shares of the competing modes in the corridor.     

Using best–worst scaling to identify barriers to walkability: a study of Porto Alegre,Brazil

This paper pursues three goals: (1) determining the relative importance of built environment barriers limiting walkability, (2) analyzing the existence of an asymmetry in the way people evaluate positive and negative built environment characteristics, and (3) identifying solutions to tackle the main barriers and quantify their impact in walkability. A best–worst scaling survey was developed to compare the importance of eight different attributes of the built environment regarding walkability. Model results show an asymmetry negative–positive in the judgment and choice of built environment characteristics that promote and impede walkability. The most important barriers, obtained from worst responses, are connectivity, topography, sidewalk surface and absence of policemen. Walkability scores were computed for different neighbourhoods and different policy scenarios were forecasted. Simulation results from the worst responses indicate that improvements in sidewalk quality, along with an increase in the number of police officers, lead to an 85% increase in the walkability score for the lower income neighbourhoods.

     

A Gendered Perspective of the Shelter–Transport–Livelihood Link: The Case of Poor Women in Delhi

Abstract

Women form an important part of the workforce originating from the slums in the city of Delhi, India. The paper illustrates that women spend more time travelling on slower modes of transport to access work; the faster modes are more expensive. Their time–poverty demands they look for work at shorter distances from home. The basic argument presented is that their ability to contribute to the alleviation of their standard of living and their status in society is severely curtailed by their limited mobility and the constrained accessibility to the transport system of the city. This transport deprivation becomes further exacerbated by the process of forced eviction and relocation of low‐income households to the periphery of the city, causing the women to lose livelihood opportunities.     

Walk score® and its potential contribution to the study of active transport and walkability: A critical and systematic review

The Walk Score® index has become increasingly applied in studies of walking and walkability. The index assesses the “walking potential” of a place through a combination of three elements: the shortest distance to a group of preselected destinations, the block length, and the intersection density around the origin. The Index links a gravity-based measure (distance accessibility), with topological accessibility (street connectivity) measured by two complementary indicators that act as penalties in the final score (linearly expanded in the range 0–100). A systematic review of Scopus® and Web of Science® was conducted with 42 journal articles eventually being evaluated. Research was primarily undertaken in North American urban geographies. Analysis of walkability using Walk Score® is inconsistent. Twenty-nine papers do not exclusively relying on Walk Score® as a single measurement of walkability and add further estimates to better capture the multiple dimensions of walkability. In 33 studies the Walk Score® was used as an independent variable, and only once as a mediating-moderating variable. In eight papers (18%) the Walk Score® was a part of a bivariate correlation model. On no occasion was it used as a dependent variable. Results tend to only partly support the validity of Walk Score®. The paper concludes that the Index is best understood as a surrogate measure of the density of the built environment of a specific neighborhood that indicates utilitarian walking potential. Implications for, and potential areas of, future research are discussed.     

‘Unconventional modes’ of transport in the United Kingdom—A review of types and the policy context

‘Unconventional modes’ (UCMs) of public transport have been emerging steadily and unobtrusively in the United Kingdom over the last two decades, largely originating in rural areas. Since 1977, there has been a quickening expansion of numbers and diversification of types in the light of governments' increasing concern with the cost of supporting ‘conventional’ public transport and the search for cheaper alternatives. An essential part of this review is to establish a definition of ‘unconventional’ as an aid to classifying the wide and increasing diversity of modes, and clarifying terminology. UCMs overlap with ‘community transport,’ which caters for the mobility needs of elderly and handicapped persons. In the context of bus service deregulation in 1985/6, the UCM sector is expected to expand although its precise future role is unclear.     

The “Ubernomics” of ridesourcing: the myths and the reality

ABSTRACT

This paper looks at the economics of ridesourcing (or app-based ride-hailing) with a particular focus on the US. It brings together the rather dispersed literature on the subject focusing on the economic characteristics of the underlying industry and sets this within the broader context of transportation economics. In particular, it sorts out the realities of ridesourcing from some of myths that were perpetrated in its early days and, in many cases, still persist. It considers some of the empirical evidence that has emerged regarding the key parameters that determine the way Uber and the like operate, and the welfare implications of this, together with comments on some of the regulatory reactions to the new transportation platform. It concludes by suggesting some ways in which recent developments in economic could move forward our understanding of the industry as technologies and markets change.     

Reduced dwell times resulting from train–platform improvements: the costs and benefits of improving passenger accessibility to metro trains

Abstract

This paper examines whether a dwell time reduction on a high-intensity metro service, as a result of a series of accessibility enhancements, can contribute to an increased level of service and accessible public transport for passengers together with a reduction in costs for the operator. Actual train operation data were collected by on-site observations and from London Underground Ltd. A simple simulation is built to represent the effect on the overall cycle times of trains if certain parameters (e.g. dwell time) are changed. Four models are developed, concerning: (1) step height between train and platform, (2) an assumption of passenger service time to be no longer than 20 s, (3) door width and (4) the combination of step height and door width. From the application of the models it appears that the fourth model provides the highest reduction in dwell time and diminishes the overall cycle times of trains. However, it is the most expensive to implement as it requires work to raise platforms and the purchase of new rolling stock.     

Is a new applied transportation research field emerging?––A review of intermodal rail–truck freight transport literature

Intermodal freight transport has developed into a significant sector of the transport industry in its own right. This development has been followed by an increase in intermodal freight transportation research. We contend that a new transportation research application field is emerging; and that, while still in a pre-paradigmatic phase, it is now time to move on to a more mature independent research field. An independent research field can be justified because intermodal transport is a complex system that has characteristics which distinguishes it from other transport systems. We have reviewed 92 publications in order to identify the characteristics of the intermodal research community and scientific knowledge base. This paper will discuss aspects of this research, assessing the status quo and seeking directions for the future. To conclude, we will propose an intermodal research agenda which can direct the intermodal research field towards a period of “normal science”.     

Estimating the most likely space–time paths,dwell times and path uncertainties from vehicle trajectory data: A time geographic method

Global Positioning System and other location-based services record vehicles’ spatial locations at discrete time stamps. Considering these recorded locations in space with given specific time stamps, this paper proposes a novel time-dependent graph model to estimate their likely space–time paths and their uncertainties within a transportation network. The proposed model adopts theories in time geography and produces the feasible network–time paths, the expected link travel times and dwell times at possible intermediate stops. A dynamic programming algorithm implements the model for both offline and real-time applications. To estimate the uncertainty, this paper also develops a method based on the potential path area for all feasible network–time paths. This paper uses a set of real-world trajectory data to illustrate the proposed model, prove the accuracy of estimated results and demonstrate the computational efficiency of the estimation algorithm.     

The Hamilton–Jacobi partial differential equation and the three representations of traffic flow

This paper applies the theory of Hamilton–Jacobi partial differential equations to the case of first-order traffic flow models. The traffic flow surface is analyzed with respect to the three 2-dimensional coordinate systems arising in the space of vehicle number, time and distance. In each case, the solution to the initial and boundary value problems are presented. Explicit solution methods and examples are shown for the triangular flow-density diagram case. This unveils new models and shows how a number of existing models are cast as special cases.     

“Bottom line” business standards versus public service obligations: The case of the German federal railway

The publicly-owned German Federal Railway Corporation (DB) is technically very proficient but economically very inefficient. The financial burden that is revenue shortfall has imposed on the State has become nearly intolerable. There are external and internal reasons for the DB's financial problems. External factors include: competition from other modes, changes in demand for bulk goods, and a shift in national traffic flows from east-west to north-south. Internal causes are: low productivity growth, confused regulations about reimbursing costs for public service burdens and lack of freedom for management to pursue cost-lowering measures. The article describes four different periods of policy aimed at consolidating and modernizing the German Rail System. The latest set of proposals for a financial cure involve a transfer of the track and infrastructure to direct government responsibility and putting transport operations into a for-profit corporation. The debate still continues over precise details of a proposed remedy but the political interests involved will likely prevent a novel or clear-cut solution.     

Opening out and closing down: the treatment of uncertainty in transport planning’s forecasting paradigm

Transportation - Since the 1960s, development of the transport system has been framed by the notion of forecasting future demand. Yet the past decade or more appears to signal some significant...     

A week in the life of baby boomers: how do they see the spatial–temporal organization of their activities and travel?

In this paper, we take an initial look at the spatial and temporal flexibility in the activity patterns of the so-called “baby-boomer” cohort (born 1947–1966) in comparison with younger and older adults. Using a unique longitudinal survey carried in Quebec City from 2002 to 2005, we explore activity patterns and trip rates over a seven-day observation period during the first wave, and take a first look at some aspects of their evolution over two subsequent waves at about one-year intervals. We model the propensity to undertake activities within selected conventional non-work classifications such as “shopping” and “leisure”, and also according to respondents’ own perceptions of the spatial and temporal flexibility of each out-of-home activity that they had executed. While we cannot strictly separate cohort effects from age-related effects, after controlling for gender and household structure, we infer that age and related lifestyle effects dominate in explaining these propensities. However, the boomers were the only age stratum to increase their total out-of-home activity participation over the course of the panel, an intriguing starting point for the future study of this cohort.

Commuter rail accessibility and house values: The case of the Montreal South Shore,Canada, 1992–2009

While public transportation (PT) plays a crucial role in the social and environmental dimensions, its impacts on the location rent remain poorly known. However, there is a strong connection between PT infrastructures and real estate markets since the former may generate externalities that can influence sales prices. This paper aims at estimating the actual effect of implementing a commuter train service between a major city (Montreal, Canada) and its southern periphery occurring in 2000–2003. Using a difference-in-differences (DID) estimator in the hedonic price model for single-family house sales between 1992 and 2009, the paper estimates the direct marginal price impact of a new commuter train service following changes in access to stations. Results suggest that the opening of a new commuter train service on the Montreal South Shore generates a location premium for houses located in the stations’ vicinity (as measured through walking distance and car driving time) as opposed to houses that do not experience any improvement in accessibility to the commuter train service, either in space or in time. In addition, the new service raises property tax income for involved municipalities by several million dollars a year through enhanced property values.