Why do people fare evade? A global shift in fare evasion research

ABSTRACT

Fare evasion is a significant concern for most transit authorities. The traditional approach to fare compliance has focussed on modifying the physical control of ticketing or ticket inspection rates. Yet recently the perspective on fare evasion has begun to shift toward profiling the fare evader or understanding the customer motivations to fare evade. This paper uses a literature review method to document the characteristics of these three perspectives on fare evasion: the conventional transit system perspective, the customer profiling perspective and the customer motivations perspective. We find that the conventional transit system perspective, although straightforward to measure and control, has its limits particularly in “open” transit systems. The customer profiling perspective attempts to identify, based on demographics, which customers are more likely to fare evade. However this perspective has little use beyond profiling and is ethically questionable. The customer motivations perspective provides a richer understanding of how customers define fare evasion and what attitudes, social norms and circumstances motivates them to fare evade. Considering that between 20% and 40% of a city’s residents admit to fare evading at some point, understanding these complex motivations can help improve revenue compliance at a time when most governments heavily subsidise their transit systems.     

From traces to trajectories: How well can we guess activity locations from mobile phone traces?

Passively generated mobile phone dataset is emerging as a new data source for research in human mobility patterns. Information on individuals’ trajectories is not directly available from such data; they must be inferred. Many questions remain in terms how well we can capture human mobility patterns from these datasets. Only one study has compared the results from a mobile phone dataset to those from the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS), though the comparison is on two different populations and samples. This study is a very first attempt that develops a procedure to generate a simulated mobile phone dataset containing the ground truth information. This procedure can be used by other researchers and practitioners who are interested in using mobile phone data and want to formally evaluate the effectiveness of an algorithm.To identify activity locations from mobile phone traces, we develop an ensemble of methods: a model-based clustering method to identify clusters, a logistic regression model to distinguish between activity and travel clusters, and a set of behavior-based algorithms to detect types of locations visited. We show that the distribution of the activity locations identified from the simulated mobile phone dataset resembles the ground truth better than the existing studies. For home locations, 70% and 97% of identified homes are within 100 and 1000 m from the truth, respectively. For work places, 65% and 86% of the identified work places are within 100 and 1000 m from the true ones, respectively. These results point to the possibility of using these passively generated mobile phone datasets to supplement or even replace household travel surveys in transportation planning in the future.     

Why (not) abolish fares? Exploring the global geography of fare-free public transport

Transportation - Although the policy of abolishing fares in public transport—here referred to as “fare-free public transport” (FFPT)—exists in nearly 100 localities...     

Personal tradable carbon permits for road transport: Why, why not and who wins?

Personal road transport sector poses a significant challenge in reducing carbon emissions. This paper evaluates a policy approach known as personal tradable carbon permits to reduce carbon emissions from personal vehicles. The policy is a downstream tradable permit where individuals are allocated carbon emission caps. The policy is qualitatively evaluated in the context of carbon taxes and some upstream tradable permit options. The biggest disadvantage of such a policy is the initial set up costs. Personal tradable permits, however, are more effective than carbon taxes and are also capable of stabilizing the gasoline prices faced by the consumers when the underlying oil prices fluctuate. Since equity effects are often a concern to policy makers, the effect of such personal carbon permits on the distribution of burden is quantified in a partial equilibrium framework for the US population. Different permit allocation strategies are investigated in this regard. Using US consumer expenditure survey data, and incorporating a differentiated price response for different households, we find that all three allocation strategies considered are progressive: a per adult based allocation is the most progressive, a per vehicle allocation nearer to proportional, and a per capita allocation in between the two. Personal tradable permits therefore take care of equity concerns directly through the design of the policy.     

Why do you care what other people think? A qualitative investigation of social influence and telecommuting

The effect of social interactions on decision-making is a topic of current interest in the travel behavior literature. These interactions have been investigated primarily from an intra-household perspective, but increasingly too in other types of social settings. In the case of interactions within a workplace, it has been suggested that the decision to telecommute may have some important social components. Previous research has concentrated on social isolation, and the effect on job satisfaction of qualitatively different (i.e., telecommunications-mediated) relationships with managers and colleagues. A topic that remains unexplored is the way social norms, in effect the influence of other people’s behavior, may influence the decision to adopt telecommuting. In this paper we set to investigate, within a qualitative framework, the role of social contact in the process of acquiring information on, and making decisions about, telecommuting. The results indicate that social contact does play a subtle but non-trivial role in the adoption and continuation process, and offer some insights about the importance of the social dimension, institutional set-up, and how they interact to influence the decision to telecommute.     

“I can do perfectly well without a car!”

This article presents the results of a study exploring travellers’ preferences for middle-distance travel using Q-methodology. Respondents rank-ordered 42 opinion statements regarding travel choice and motivations for travel in general and for car and public transport as alternative travel modes. By-person factor analysis revealed four distinct preference segments for middle-distance travel: (1) choice travellers with a preference for public transport, (2) deliberate-choice travellers, (3) choice travellers with car as dominant alternative, and (4) car-dependent travellers. These preference segments differ in terms of the levels of involvement and cognitive effort in travel decision making, the travel consideration-set and underlying motivations. The study showed that for most people there is more to travel than getting from point A to point B, and that there is considerable heterogeneity in middle-distance travel preferences. Policy implications for reducing the need for travel and promoting a modal shift from car to other travel modes are discussed.     

Why do some motorbike riders wear a helmet and others don’t? Evidence from Delhi,India

Road traffic accident fatalities lead to important private and social costs in the metropolitan areas of most low and middle income countries. An important share of these fatalities is due to injuries to the head and the neck. Helmets can provide efficient protection, but many drivers do not use them. We focus on helmet use behavior among motorbike users in Delhi. We use a detailed data set collected for the purpose of the study. To guide our empirical analysis, we rely on a model in which drivers decide on self-protection and self-insurance. The empirical findings suggest that risk-averse drivers are more likely to wear a helmet and that this has no systematic effect on speed. Helmet use also increases with education. Drivers who show a higher awareness of road risks seem to be both more likely to wear a helmet and to speed less. Controlling for risk awareness, we observe that drivers tend to compensate between speed and helmet use. The results can provide a basis for awareness-raising policies. They also show that improvements to the road infrastructure risk leading to risk-compensating behavior.     

Why has car-fleet specific fuel consumption not shown any decrease since 1990? Quantitative analysis of Dutch passenger car-fleet specific fuel consumption

The Dutch car-fleet specific fuel consumption has not shown any decrease since 1990. The main reasons for the car-fleet specific fuel consumption no longer showing a decrease after 1990, namely, increases in vehicle weight and cylinder capacity, have been concluded from an analysis of Dutch car-fleet specific fuel consumption in the period 1980–1997. The increase in weight of the average sales-weighted new car in this period can be almost completely explained by the increase in weight of successive models (upgrading). This upgrading is partly the result of competition between car manufacturers but is also due to stricter safety requirements. However, because upgrading has been fairly extreme, the 1981 model of a car type often belonged to a different car type than the 1997 model of the same type. Upgrading is therefore a consequence, not only of the competition among car manufacturers and stricter safety requirements, but probably also of the shift in consumer demand for more expensive, larger and heavier cars. The 1998 agreement with the European car manufacturers (ACEA) and the Dutch CO₂ differentiation in car purchase taxes will probably lead to a further decrease in specific fuel consumption in the European fuel test-cycle (Eurotest) in the near future. However, real-world specific fuel consumption will decrease less because the difference between specific fuel consumption measured in the Eurotest and real-world specific fuel consumption is expected to increase as a result of the increasing use of both air conditioners and direct-injection gasoline engines.     

海口旅行社协会:困惑?担忧?委屈?

2006年6月底,海南春秋、海南民间等10家旅行社共同组建海口市旅游汽车服务中心,该中心成立后,遭到海南省统一旅游汽车服务中心大巴车主的强烈反对,成立不到半月在政府及有关部门的协调下暂时"关门".     

弃商从政?从商弃政?政商并举?

2011年7月,三一重工以市值215.84亿美元首次进入英国《金融时报》全球500强排行榜。在外企、国企曾经一统江山的机械工程行业,三一重工的崛起令人瞩目,其横冲直撞的竞争风格与其在资本市场的纵横捭阖,也引发了诸多争议。近期,一举成为福布斯、胡润富豪榜双料首富的三一重工当家人梁稳根可能"弃商从政"的新闻传出。紧     

新能源:心动?行动?

<正>一大波新能源强势来袭,为这个春天再添一抹新绿。经过多年蛰伏,2015年1~4月,中国的新能源车市持续发力:新能源汽车累计生产3.44万辆,同比增长近3倍。尽管这成绩惊呆了小伙伴们,但顾不上窃喜,因为争议和凸现的问题也让人心塞:一旦离开政策的扶手,新能源车市场立刻变脸为"冷酷仙境"。2015年,政策支持依旧相当给力,但新能源车究竟靠什么让市场心动?仅仅     

责任何在?担当何在?

特斯拉再陷争议. 4月19日,上海车展刚刚开幕,一名女子就站上红色特斯拉车顶,张开双臂对围观群众高喊——"特斯拉刹车失灵!特斯拉刹车失灵!"     

被束缚?还是破茧新生?

正困则思,思则变,形象地描述了当下传统道路客运行业的现实状况。面对高铁的触角不断延长,多元化的交通方式逐渐被人们采纳,以往买张汽车票回家过年的日子似乎已成为回忆。新常态下,时代要求道路客运实现转型升级。既然不能逆转时代步伐,那便只能顺应潮流发展:一场转型升级的变革正在上演。