乌鲁木齐公交车见闻

在倡导低碳出行的今天,无论到哪个城市,都离不开公交车,从这个角度看,城市公交车的形象体现了一个城市的文明程度。     

香港公交车的安全管理

香港道路狭窄、弯曲是众人皆知的事。香港道路仍旧能够保持每小时20公里以上的速度也令人称奇。香港的公交车大部分都是双层结构的庞然大物,在狭窄的道路上穿梭或许还不足为奇,在弯曲的斜坡上奔驶就足以令人心惊胆跳了。那么香港公交车的安全问题是如何保障的？     

梁山好汉与经济学的相互“勾兑”——评王法争《〈水浒传〉里的经济学》

<正>《水浒传》说的是"史",照出的却是"实"。人才、体制、名声,领导艺术、从商之道、创业经的流变状况,也是北宋财政税收、房地产、物价、婚姻等社会经济的一个个片段。当然,热闹之外是某种经济逻辑,《〈水浒传〉里的经济学》显然是想要理出这个逻辑。知名财经作家王法争戴上"经济学"的眼镜研读和     

公交车为什么不准点？

公交若要能吸引客源,其中一项重要的服务策略是保持高的准点率。市民若能知道公交下何时到站,何时抵达目的地,即使车况略为不尽人意,也不会影响对公交车的好感。公交车准点因此是城市公交管理上的一项重要评价指标。我国城市的公交车以不准点出色。为什么会这样呢？     

Passenger conveyor economics

Operating and capital costs for a high speed conveyor are estimated from cost data for low speed conveyors and from estimates for high speed designs. Unit costs are developed with reference to theoretical and practical conveyor capacities, and to the effect of traffic peaking on average utilization. User benefits are modelled as the change in consumers surplus arising from the introduction of a conveyor on a linear street as an alternative to walking. Cost and benefits vary widely depending on system design and location and on characteristics of travellers. Benefit measurements should reflect the effects on travel demand of a proposed installation, changes in value of time with changes in mode, and the effects of benefit “dilution” associated with limitations on access to the conveyor.     

The economics of workplace charging

To overcome the range-anxiety problem and further shortcomings associated with electric vehicles, workplace charging (WPC) is gaining increasing attention. We propose a microeconomic model of WPC and use the approach to shed light on the incentives and barriers employees and employers face when deciding on demand for and supply of WPC. It is shown that under market conditions there is no WPC contract an employer is willing to offer and at the same time the majority of employees is willing to accept. To overcome the lack of demand or underprovision of WPC we discuss various ‘remedies’, involving subsidies to charging facility costs and adjustments in electricity tariffs or loading technologies. We find that direct subsidies to WPC facilities or subsidies combined with specific energy price policies could be a way to foster WPC provision. In contrast measures on the employee side that may help to stimulate the demand for WPC turn out to be less feasible. Hence, our results suggest that in order to promote WPC it is more promising to support employers in offering WPC contracts than to provide employees an incentive to accept WPC contracts. The study therefore gives a rationale for public initiatives being undertaken to boost WPC provision, as e.g. in the case of the US.     

The economics of road safety

In this paper we present a theoretical framework for the analysis of road safety in different contexts characterized by the following factors: the presence or the absence of externalities, moral hazard, taxes (subsidies), government regulation, liability insurance and multi-period insurance contracts. The main results are the following: (i) A Pareto optimal solution for insurance coverage and road safety is characterized by full insurance and a level of prevention which takes into account externalities between drivers. (ii) Without asymmetrical information, such a Pareto optimal solution can be obtained with or without a fault system for negligence if an adequate rating system is set up in order to induce individuals to take into account externalities. Taxes and subsidies can also be efficient. Government regulation of road safety is another way to reduce inefficies due to externalities. However, these interventions will not generally lead to a socially optimal level of road safety under asymmetrical information. (iii) Under asymmetrical information, two mechanisms are examined in some detail: fault for negligence and multi-period insurance contracts. It is shown that one-period liability insurance contracts (assuming that the legal system can observe the individual's level of road safety activities when accidents occur) or multi-period no-fault insurance contracts (assuming an infinite horizon with no discounting) based in part on the individual's past driving record can give individually rational self-protection activity levels which are socially efficient in presence of both moral hazard and externalities. Under less stringent assumptions, these contracts can give second-best solutions.     

Bus network design

This paper describes the bus network design problem, summarizes the different approaches that have been proposed for its solution and proposes a new approach incorporating some of the positive aspects of prior work. The proposed approach is intended to be easier to implement and less demanding in terms of both data requirements and analytical sophistication than previous methods. An algorithm is presented that can be used to design new bus routes taking account of both passenger and operator interests; however, this algorithm focuses on only a single component of the overall bus operations planning process described in this paper.     

梦幻之车现身羊城--中大汽车五款新车亮相广州国际客车展

6月15日,首届南中国国际客车展在广州花城展览中心隆重举行.中大汽车在展会上一举推出了最新研制的五大系列豪华客车新产品. 中大YCK6139HGW豪华高档特大型客车,成为本次展会耀眼的明星车型之一,吸引了众多与会人士的目光.该车型采用欧美最新流行造型,时尚、大气、整车浑然一体、饱满圆润,独特的前挡风设计,即有王者风范又不失典雅.     

The time dimension of parking economics

A model of demand for parking, evolving over time, is proposed. The model features both extensive (whether to park) and intensive (for how long to park) margins of parking demand, allows multidimensional heterogeneity of parkers, and evolution of demand throughout the day. I show that the optimal price for parking is proportional to the rate of arrival of new parkers and is inversely related to the square of the occupancy rate, which is different from previously discussed pricing methods. I show that the primary purpose of pricing is to regulate departures, rather than arrivals, of parkers. I also find that asymmetric information about parkers’ characteristics does not prevent the parking authority from achieving the social optimum. A numerical example compares the optimal policy against the alternatives.     

On the economics of rapid-transit operations

This paper develops and estimates a new cost function for rapid-rail properties in the United States and Canada. Its advantage over previously developed cost models lies in its being an approximation to an arbitrary cost function, and thus not subject to the restrictions inherent in other models. The characterization of the industry that emerges from this work differs in important respects from that previously reported. An application to BART is also discussed.     

Transport economics: A personal view

The field of transportation attracts individuals from diverse backgrounds, seeking to make contributions to policy, planning, operations and strategy. Economists are one of the more visible subsets of players, who bring a specific focus to the transport problem. The key theme of this paper is economic efficiency and ways that transport economics seeks to achieve efficient outcomes in the presence of markets and institutions that to varying degrees distort the potential to fulfil this primary goal. We review some of the recent contributions to the literatures on institutional and market reform, travel choice and demand. As we enter the next century, there is a sense of promoting ‘back to basics’ (and redefinition of what skills transport specialists will require) in seeking a better understanding of the role of markets and institutions in guiding the destiny of the transport sector.     

Bus Priority Using pre-signals

The need to provide efficient public transport services in urban areas has led to the implementation of bus priority measures in many congested cities. Much interest has recently centred on priority at signal controlled junctions, including the concept of pre-signals, where traffic signals are installed at or near the end of a with-flow bus lane to provide buses with priority access to the downstream junction. Although a number of pre-signals have now been installed in the U.K., particularly in London, there has been very little published research into their design, operation and optimisation. This paper addresses these points through the development of analytical procedures which allow pre-implementation evaluation of specific categories of pre-signals. The paper initially sets out three categories of pre-signal, which have different operating characteristics, different requirements for signalling and different impacts on capacity and delay. Key issues concerning signalling arrangements for these categories are then discussed, together with a summary of the analytical approach adopted and the assumptions required. Equations are developed to allow appropriate signal timings to be calculated for pre-signalised intersections. Further equations are then developed to enable delays to priority and non-priority traffic, with and without pre-signals, to be estimated with delay being taken here as the key performance criterion. The paper concludes with three application examples illustrating how the equations are applied and the impacts of pre-signals in different situations.The analyses confirm the potential benefits of pre-signals, where these signals apply to non-priority traffic only. Where buses are also subject to a pre-signal, it is shown that disbenefits to buses can often occur, unless bus detectors are used to gain priority signalling.