Credible commitment and congestion pricing

Transportation analysts frequently assert that congestion pricing’s political obstacles can be overcome through astute use of the toll revenue pricing generates. Such “revenue recycling,” however, implies that the collectors of the toll revenue will not be its final recipients, meaning that any revenue recipient must believe that the revenue collector will honor promises to deliver the money. This raises the potential for credible commitment problems. Promises to spend revenue can solve one political problem, because revenue is an easy benefit to understand, but create another one, because revenue is easy to divert. Revenue recycling may therefore not be a promising way to build political support for congestion pricing. We highlight the role commitment problems have played efforts to implement congestion pricing, using examples from around the world and then focusing on California. Because congestion reduction is a more certain benefit than any particular use of the toll revenue, demonstration projects, rather than revenue promises, will be key to pricing’s political success.     

Management of corals and coral ecosystems in the United States

Abstract

Corals and coral communities provide substantial societal benefits by virtue of their recreational and esthetic appeal, the habitat provided for commercially harvested fish and shellfish, the structural foundation provided for productive coastal ecosystems, and the market value of harvested coral specimens. Coral resources are subject to adverse effects from pollution, dredging, specimen collecting, anchor damage, commercial fishing, overharvesting, and activities related to offshore petroleum development. Management programs which protect coral resources in the United States comprise a patchwork of separate federal and state programs. They attempt to adapt broad regulatory authorities for parks, fisheries, offshore mineral resources, and other subjects for the purpose of coral conservation. These programs embody species‐specific, area‐specific, and generic approaches to coral management. This paper traces the evolution of U.S. coral management programs and comments on their respective strengths and weaknesses. Alternative approaches for strengthening management systems could include new coordinating committees, legislation, memoranda of agreement between involved agencies, and others.     

Hubris or humility? Accuracy issues for the next 50 years of travel demand modeling

This study reviews the 50-year history of travel demand forecasting models, concentrating on their accuracy and relevance for public decision-making. Only a few studies of model accuracy have been performed, but they find that the likely inaccuracy in the 20-year forecast of major road projects is ±30 % at minimum, with some estimates as high as ±40–50 % over even shorter time horizons. There is a significant tendency to over-estimate traffic and underestimate costs, particularly for toll roads. Forecasts of transit costs and ridership are even more uncertain and also significantly optimistic. The greatest knowledge gap in US travel demand modeling is the unknown accuracy of US urban road traffic forecasts. Modeling weaknesses leading to these problems (non-behavioral content, inaccuracy of inputs and key assumptions, policy insensitivity, and excessive complexity) are identified. In addition, the institutional and political environments that encourage optimism bias and low risk assessment in forecasts are also reviewed. Major institutional factors, particularly low local funding matches and competitive grants, confound scenario modeling efforts and dampen the hope that technical modeling improvements alone can improve forecasting accuracy. The fundamental problems are not technical but institutional: high non-local funding shares for large projects warp local perceptions of project benefit versus costs, leading to both input errors and political pressure to fund projects. To deal with these issues, the paper outlines two different approaches. The first, termed ‘hubris’, proposes a multi-decade effort to substantially improve model forecasting accuracy over time by monitoring performance and improving data, methods and understanding of travel, but also by deliberately modifying the institutional arrangements that lead to optimism bias. The second, termed ‘humility’, proposes to openly quantify and recognize the inherent uncertainty in travel demand forecasts and deliberately reduce their influence on project decision-making. However to be successful either approach would require monitoring and reporting accuracy, standards for modeling and forecasting, greater model transparency, educational initiatives, coordinated research, strengthened ethics and reduction of non-local funding ratios so that localities have more at stake.     

A dynamic model for marginal cost pricing of port infrastructures

ABSTRACT

A dynamic model for marginal cost pricing of port infrastructures links costs to system performance by combining a power-law function with time-dependent queueing analysis. Additionally, the model incorporates the marginal cost of capacity, including the effects of economies of scale. This allows the calculation of the marginal cost price under a dynamic framework. The model accounts for nonlinear behaviour of port demand, which is sensitive to price and service levels. The effects over time of cost and service levels on the port’s operational performance are quantified. The proposed model allows determining the optimal timing for capacity investment. The model is a starting point for the application of marginal cost pricing to ports. However, for practical application of such pricing method it is necessary to apply a system’s approach, as productivity and costs must be assessed at the terminal’s component level. This should allow the derivation of a marginal cost function at the terminal’s component level.     

Extracting driving characteristics from heavy goods vehicle tachograph charts

European Union regulations require haulage companies of member states like the UK to keep records of their drivers’ hours of work. All heavy goods vehicles (HGV's) over 7.5 tonnes are fitted with tachographs which record a driver's operating activities (periods of driving, other work and rest). These records are etched onto a laminated chart by various styli, one of which records the vehicle's speed. This paper describes the development and testing of a new technique for extracting individual driving characteristics from the speed trace of an HGV tachograph chart to calculate four parameters: distance travelled, average speed, time travelled and speed variability.

The average speed, time travelled and speed variability were analysed statistically using one‐way analysis of variance tests. Speed variability was found to be particularly useful for identifying differences between individual driver's behaviour. Once differences in behaviours can be identified it may be possible to link certain driving habits to factors such as component wear, accident rates and excessive fuel usage.     

Grant aiding rural local roads—an alternative approach

The paper points first to the significance of rural road expenditure in Australia and to the limited success of attempts to place grants for these roads within a framework of economic efficiency. Attention is then drawn to the merit good issue and to the findings of recent research which suggest that spatial equity and changing levels of aspiration are important determinants of road user attitudes. From this the authors conclude that disequilibrium between expected and actual road performance levels will be a salient characteristic and that road grants should be directed to reducing this discordance. A methodology for distributing grants is suggested and illustrated by reference to South Australian data.

     

Exploring the relationship between perceived acceptability and referendum voting support for alternative road pricing schemes

A dominant theme in the debate on road pricing (RP) reform is securing buy in from all key stakeholders as a pre-condition for gaining support from politicians. This paper explores the key influences and the extent to which particular RP schemes are acceptable to the community at large, and how this translates into support if a scheme were subject to a vote in a referendum. Using data collected in Sydney in 2012 from a sample of car users, we estimate a recursive simultaneous bivariate probit model that recognises the endogeneity effect of scheme acceptability on voting plans. We find that there is a very strong link between voting intentions and scheme acceptability, and provide a series of direct elasticity estimates of the influence that the cost elements of RP reform schemes have on the joint probability of accepting and voting for a scheme.     

Transport and nation‐state governments worldwide

The Sydney Olympics held in September 2000 provided an opportunity to monitor the planning of transport provision for the world's greatest sporting spectacular. As the single largest major event, the pressures on a city's transport system are enormous, as witnessed by the previous Games in Atlanta and Barcelona. This paper takes a value-chain approach to assess transport performance as a crucial element in the delivery of the Sydney Olympic Games. We begin with a brief overview of strategic value, highlighting some generic aspects of value chains followed by the transport delivery system that came to the fore as significant 'drivers' in the value chain. This is followed by a summary of the effectiveness of the buses, trains, taxis, roads and the airport. A more detailed look is provided of the private bus sector where the problems leading up the opening of the Games received a great deal of media attention. The paper concludes with two stories, one good, one not so good, about transport and the Olympic Games.