Estimating commuter mode choice: A discrete choice analysis of the impact of road pricing and parking charges

Automobile use leads to external costs associated with emissions, congestion, noise and other impacts. One option for minimizing these costs is to introduce road pricing and parking charges to reduce demand for single occupant vehicle (SOV) use, while providing improvements to alternatives to encourage mode switching. However, the impact of these policies on urban mode choice is uncertain, and results reported from regions where charging has been introduced may not be transferable. In particular, revealed preference data associated with cost recovery tolls on single facilities may not provide a clear picture of driver response to tolls for demand management. To estimate commuter mode choice behaviour in response to such policies, 548 commuters from a Greater Vancouver suburb who presently drive alone to work completed an individually customized discrete choice experiment (DCE) in which they chose between driving alone, carpooling or taking a hypothetical express bus service when choices varied in terms of time and cost attributes. Attribute coefficients identified with the DCE were used in a predictive model to estimate commuter response to various policy oriented combinations of charges and incentives. Model results suggest that increases in drive alone costs will bring about greater reductions in SOV demand than increases in SOV travel time or improvements in the times and costs of alternatives beyond a base level of service. The methods described here provide an effective and efficient way for policy makers to develop an initial assessment of driver reactions to the introduction of pricing policies in their particular regions.     

Port competition with accessibility and congestion: a theoretical framework and literature review on empirical studies

This review interprets recent studies of the interactions between the competition of gateway seaports and the accessibility of landside transportation links to inland regions. Port competition is treated as part of a rivalry between two transportation chains. This article identifies the main modeling approaches and defines the different types of hinterland access systems described in the literature. A general theoretical framework is then proposed to incorporate those key components. The importance of the proposed framework is revealed by comparing and extending results from the literature. Major assumptions that need further empirical verification are identified and discussed, and related empirical studies are reviewed. Finally, avenues for further research are discussed.     

Impacts of trade liberalization on Chinese economy with Belt and Road initiative

China has been continuously implementing the open-door policy for past 15 years ever since it joined the World Trade Organization, which escalated international trade and demand for shipping. Compared with the other major importing countries in the world, China’s importing tariff is relatively low. Under the Belt and Road initiatives, more Free Trade Agreements to be concluded and more Free Trade Zones to be established, it is expected that the effective import tariff rate may continue to decrease in the future. This study analyses the impact of further reduction in Chinese import tariff rate on major economic indicators using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model and based on the Chinese macro-economic data of 2012. The model results show that, with a balanced international payment, such a reduction can increase GDP, resident consumption, both imports and exports, and reduce GDP price, trade surplus, and government revenue. The results ease the concern that further import tariff reduction may harm the domestic production. Rather, it points out that there are still rooms to improve national economy and increase the consumer utility by trade liberation.     

橡胶沥青的输送和计量

橡胶沥青作为道路工程中的高温、高粘度介质,想要成功地将其泵送可能并不容易,而进行橡胶沥青的计量则更具挑战性。由于胶粉的磨蚀性,使用机械式的齿轮流量计已被证明是不可靠的。因为随着时间的推移,胶粉对齿轮的磨损会造成啮合齿轮打滑,由此造成的测量误差会超过精度许可范围。     

Bicycle commuting in an automobile-dominated city: how individuals become and remain bike commuters in Charlotte,North Carolina

Transportation - In Charlotte, North Carolina less than one half of 1% of commuters ride a bicycle to work despite several decades of public investment in bicycle infrastructure and planning. Like...     

Spillover effects and dynamic correlations between spot and forward tanker freight markets

Monitoring and analysing information transmission across different shipping markets is an important tool for participants to predict shipping freight rates, design portfolio investments and manage freight rate risks. The purpose of this article is to investigate spillover effects and dynamic correlations between shipping spot and derivatives markets (tanker forward freight agreement, FFA) under the multivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity framework. Empirical results show that spillovers in returns are unilateral from one-month FFA to spot markets, while they are bilateral between one-month and two-month FFA markets. However, insignificant mean spillovers between spot and two-month FFA markets are found. Volatility spillover effects among one-month FFA, two-month FFA and spot freight markets are bilateral. By analysing the correlation between different markets, highly persistent and significantly volatile correlations are found. Moreover, time-varying correlations between one-month and two-month FFA markets are much higher than those of between spot and each FFA market. Results from this article will be helpful to improve participants’ predictions of return, volatility and correlation, which are significant for determining hedge strategies. In addition, the management of freight rate risk and portfolio investment can also benefit from the empirical results obtained in this article.     

Port competition between Shanghai and Ningbo

The objective of this paper is to analyse the relative competitiveness of the neighbouring container ports of Shanghai and Ningbo in China and to develop a view of the likely future outcome of the competition between them. After assessing the demand for their services within what is hypothesized as a shared hinterland, current supply and future expansion plans are detailed and considered within the two ports' wider development strategies. The relative competitiveness of the two ports is then evaluated on the basis of price and quality of service, as embodied within the concept of generalized cost as incurred by customers. A critical political dimension is a necessary element of this analysis. It is concluded that continued economic development in the hinterland, central government policies on regional development and China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) will all contribute to growing demand for port services. However, Ningbo will continue to gain greater market share as the result of advantages in its natural endowments (particularly depth of water), price (especially in terms of recovering the cost of capacity expansions) and quality of service improvements that are predicted to emerge as the result of currently planned enhancements to inland transport infrastructure and logistical systems.     

火与气的探查测绘

火与气的探测系统在许多现场扮演着安全方面极重要的角色。正规的安全评估常常假设火与气的探测系统可以减轻危险，然而在这方面却几乎没有标准的指导原则。要想对有关参数定量往往是很困难的，而想要确定在安全要求方面的预期性状或表述已达到的实际性状也往往无章可循。[第一段]     

Evaluating commuter opinion of congestion pricing in metropolitan Seattle

Continued growth and development in the Puget Sound region combined with existing geographic limitations have resulted in a transportation network that is at or near capacity for many hours during every weekday. Single‐occupancy vehicles (SOVs) remain the predominant mode of travel, despite a network of high‐occupancy vehicle lanes and regional transit. Given this situation, considering alternative methods to regulate traffic flow is necessary, and the implementation of a regional congestion pricing system is one such option. Although widespread throughout the world, congestion pricing has only recently been implemented in the United States.     

The utility analysis of risk attitudes in shipping

Many methodologies have been developed in order to optimize business decision making. By definition, optimization is only possible when an objective, or set of objectives, has been specified. However, the presence of risk obscures the potential payoffs of a particular decision. How different decision makers react to this phenomenon is reflected in the different objectives which they adopt. One corollary of this diversity of objectives is that any generally applicable optimization method must explicitly take into account the influence of risk attitude on decision choice. Because of the magnitude of the risks involved, virtually nowhere is this requirement more relevant than in relation to shipping decisions. This paper presents and justifies a method for assessing and measuring attitudes towards market risk. The method is applied to a sample of shipowners in Britain, Norway, Hong Kong and Greece and the risk profiles that are developed have some surprising, and important, implications for decision making in shipping.