Part I: Externalities and economic policies in road transport

Road transport imposes negative externalities on society. These externalities include environmental and road damage, accidents, congestion, and oil dependence. The cost of these externalities to society is in general not reflected in the current market prices in the road transport sector.An efficient mobility model for the future must take into account the true costs of transport and its regulatory framework will need to create incentives for people to make sustainable transport choices. This paper discusses the use of economic instruments to correct road transport externalities, but gives relatively more weight to the problem of carbon emissions from road transport, as this is particularly challenging, given its global and long-term nature.Economics offers two types of instruments for addressing the problem of transport externalities: command-and-control and incentive-based policies.Command-and-control policies are government regulations which force consumers and producers to change their behaviour. They are the most widely used policy instruments. Examples include vehicle emission and fuel standards in the US as well as driving or parking restrictions in Singapore. The implementation cost of these instruments to the government is small. Although from an economic perspective these policies often fail to achieve an efficient market outcome, the presence of political constraints often make them the preferred option, in terms of feasibility and effectiveness.Economic theory shows how policies, which affect consumption and production incentives, can be used to achieve the optimal outcome in the presence of externalities. Incentive-based policies function within a new or an altered market. We first examine incentive-based policies, which cap the aggregate amount of the externality, such as carbon emissions, by allocating permits or rights to the emitters. The emitters are then free to trade their permits amongst them. The permit allocation mechanism is important-although market efficiency would be satisfied by an auction, political influences usually favour a proportional allocation based on historic emissions. We discuss EU ETS as an example of a cap-and-trade system, however, no such policy for CO₂ emissions in road transport has been implemented anywhere in the world to date.Fiscal instruments are, like command-and-control, widely used in road transport, because they are relatively cheap and simple to implement. They include the use of taxes and charges in order to bridge the gap between private and the social costs and, in principle, can lead to an efficient market solution. Registration, ownership, fuel, emissions, usage taxes, and parking and congestion charges have been implemented in many countries around the world. On the other side of the spectrum, subsidies can be given to those scrapping old cars and buying fuel-efficient vehicles. Some cities, such as London, have implemented congestion charges and many states in the United States have introduced high occupancy lanes. Other interesting possibilities include pay-as-you-drive insurance and other usage charges. However, the size and scope of taxes and subsidies are determined by governments, and because of their imperfect knowledge of the market the outcome is still likely to be inefficient.Governments have many effective economic instruments to create a sustainable road transport model. These instruments can be used separately or together, but their implementation will be necessary in the nearest future.     

The international legal instruments in addressing piracy and maritime terrorism: A critical review

This paper critically reviews four international legal instruments in addressing piracy and maritime terrorism - UNCLOS, SUA, PSI and the ISPS Code. Piracy on high seas is currently becoming key tactics of terrorist groups - many of today's pirates are also terrorists with ideological bents and a broad political agenda. The intertwining of piracy and maritime terrorism poses substantial risks for global markets, understanding that much of the world's energy and cargoes being shipped through pirate-infested regions like Southeast Asia. Through investigating the contributions and limitations of the stated instruments, several constructive recommendations are offered to improve their effectiveness in controlling and deterring piracy and maritime terrorism from threatening the well-being of the maritime industries in the post-2008 world.     

Applying SMC pricing in PPPs for the maritime sector

This paper investigates whether Short-run Marginal Cost (SMC) pricing is feasible to implement in seaports and with what type of consequences, e.g. concerning cost coverage. Answering these questions requires an analysis of the cost structure of seaports and especially of seaport calls, as well as of how the division of these costs over the different actors runs. As from the moment that this information becomes available, it can be analysed to what extent SMC pricing can be applied in Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) within the seaport sector. Till now, mainly seaport infrastructure is involved, including the seaport entry from the open sea.     

Road pricing and parking policy

The starting point of this paper is that the collection costs of urban road pricing have turned out to be unexpectedly high. A comparative cost analysis of the congestion charging system of London, Stockholm, Oslo and Singapore also shows that there are large collection cost differences. The most striking difference is between Oslo and London. Oslo, like Stockholm has the necessary, natural, qualities for a central city toll ring with a limited number of entrances; just 18 and 19 tollgates are required. For large historic cities like London with hundreds of inlets to the central city, tollgates at every entrance would involve high investment costs and be very obtrusive in the street scene. The problem is, however, that the present London charging system, with no tollgates, shows high running costs, ten times higher than in Oslo, in spite of the fact that the charged number of vehicles is the same in the two cities. This is a formidable obstacle to alleviating urban traffic congestion in many big cities.The charging technology could hopefully be developed, however, another approach is to develop and combine other measures including traffic regulation, parking policy and public transport subsidisation, which would be only second-best in a hypothetical situation where road pricing is without costs. This paper focuses on parking policy. Two strands of parking policy reform are discussed; fringe benefit taxation of free workplace parking which has recently been introduced in Sweden and a two-part tariff at parking meters, which is suggested as an extension of congestion charging to all day traffic within the central city.     

Birds using tram tracks in Poznań (Poland): Species,infrastructure use and behaviour

Transport infrastructures, mainly roads and railways, influence many aspects of bird life. The use of trams in urban areas for mass transit has been suggested as having a lower impact on the environment. However, to date, the impact of tram tracks and the surrounding infrastructure on birds has not been directly tested. Therefore, we posed two questions during a study of tramways in Poznań (western Poland): (1) which bird species use tram tracks and their infrastructure; and (2) how does their behaviour respond to moving trams. Tram tracks were recorded as used by 11 species, with four corvids (jackdaw Corvus monedula, rook Corvus frugilegus, magpie Pica pica and hooded crow Corvus cornix) totalling 66% of records and feral pigeon Columba livia contributing a further 24%. Species showed different usage patterns of the tram infrastructure. In the case of rook during winter, significantly more birds were observed further from a tram stop. In summer, a higher density of jackdaws occurred where track surroundings were vegetated, and both hooded crows in winter and magpies in winter were more abundant where track geometry was more complex. During our field work only two dead birds on tram tracks were observed. The results of this study, and a literature survey of other transport options, suggest that tram tracks are not very dangerous for birds, and at least from this point of view, can be recommended as an environmentally friendly transport system in urban areas.     

The impact of Low Emission Zones on particulate matter concentration and public health

A common policy for reducing particulate matter concentrations in the European Union is the introduction of Low Emission Zones (LEZs), which may only be entered by vehicles meeting predefined emission standards. This paper examines the effectiveness of LEZs for reducing PM₁₀ levels in urban areas in Germany and quantifies the associated health impacts from reduced air pollution within the zones. We employ a fixed effects panel data model for daily observations of PM₁₀ concentrations from 2000 to 2009 and control, inter alia, for local meteorological conditions and traffic volume. We apply the regression outputs to a concentration response function derived from the epidemiological literature to calculate associated health impacts of the introduction of LEZs in 25 German cities with 3.96 million inhabitants. Associated uncertainties are accounted for in Monte-Carlo simulations. It is found that the introduction of LEZs has significantly reduced inner city PM₁₀ levels. We estimate the total mean health impact from reduced air pollution in 2010 due to the introduction of stage 1 zones to be ∼760 million EUR in the 25 LEZ cities in the sample, whereas total mean health benefits are ∼2.4 billion EUR for the more stringent stage 2 zones when applied in the same cities.     

Metropolitan sprawl measurement and its impacts on commuting trips and road emissions

This study measures urban form as indicators of metropolitan sprawl and explores its impact on commuting trips and NO_x and CO₂ emissions from road traffic in all metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) and four groups’ MSAs separated by population in the continental United States. Encompassing all MSAs, the study adds the accessibility factor to four existing factors: density, land use mix, centeredness, and street connectivity. The study establishes multivariate regression models between urban form, commuting trips, and emissions from road traffic while controlling for socioeconomic conditions. The study shows that urban form index and five urban form factors have a statistically significant association with commuting trips, NO_x and CO₂ emissions from road traffic. In four MSA groups as determined by MSA population size, higher values of urban form factors (i.e., lower sprawl) are statistically associated with more walking commuters. On the other hand, higher values of urban form factors are associated with fewer commuting vehicles per household in large MSAs with the moderate effect, a lower average commuting drive time in medium and small MSAs, and more commuters using public transportation in medium and large MSAs. This study provides an urban form index covering all metropolitan areas in the continental United States by adding another urban form factor, and the findings show that urban form factors have different effects on mode choices, drive time, and emission from road traffic depending on the MSA population size.     

Implications of driving style and road grade for accurate vehicle activity data and emissions estimates

Real-world vehicle operating mode data (2.5 million 1 Hz records), collected by instrumenting the vehicles of 82 volunteer drivers with OBD datalogger and GPS while they drove their routine travel routes, were analyzed to quantify vehicle emissions estimate errors due to road grade and driving style in rural, hilly Vermont. Data were collected in winter and summer for MY 1996 and newer passenger cars and trucks only. EPA MOVES2010b was used to estimate running exhaust emissions associated with measured vehicle activity. Changes in vehicle specific power (VSP) and MOVES operating mode (OpMode) due to proper accounting for real-world road grade indicated emission rate errors between 10% and 48%, depending on pollutant, chiefly because grade-related changes in VSP could shift activity by as many as six OpModes, depending on road type. The correct MOVES OpMode assignment was made only 33–55% of the time when road grade was not included in the VSP calculation. Driving style of individual drivers was difficult to assess due to unknown traffic operations data, but the largest differences between individual drivers were observed on rural restricted roads, where traffic conditions and control have minimal impact. The results suggest the importance of (1) measuring and incorporating real-world road grade in order to correctly assign MOVES emission rates; and (2) developing a driving style typology to account for differences in the MOVES emissions estimates due to driver variability.     

Logistics as a driving force for development under the Belt and Road Initiative – the Chinese model for developing countries

ABSTRACT

An important objective of “the Belt and Road Initiative” is to promote the economic growth of countries in the region. China’s successful development experience, proposed in the initial stage of reform, can be summarised as “Looking for development, building the highway first”. This study is the first to evaluate whether logistics infrastructure has indeed contributed to economic growth by employing an error correction model with panel data from 2003 to 2014. In addition, we compare the influence levels of different sectors of logistics infrastructure in different regions, i.e. developed and developing regions. We focus on developing regions as they represent good development experiences for developing countries in the Silk Road Economic Belt. For developing regions, we find that the most influential factors are telecommunication and airway transportation, which should be the foci of attention in order to promote economic growth and reduce inter-region economic inequalities. The research confirms that logistics is indeed a driving force for economic growth in China, and that the contributions of specific sectors can be a useful reference for developing countries to determine prioritisation of investment in different logistics sectors across regions.     

Calculation of the freight revenues in Turkey-focused maritime transportation

The Central Bank of the Turkish Republic (TCMB) in Turkey has announced the data of freight revenues. The data that have been announced depends on the information obtained from the port customs and compiled by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK). Because of the distinctive structure of the freight market, certain requisite generalizations and projections are used for data calculation. Accordingly, calculations that depend on generalizations and predictions are likely to weaken the effectiveness of the decisions already made or going to be made. The aim of this study is to calculate more realistically the real freight revenues of ships that have carried out loading or discharging operations in Turkish ports. In accordance with this purpose, the volume of freight revenues and their distribution between Turkish and foreign flagged ships is calculated. A Microsoft SQL-based algorithm is developed in order to do the calculation. Within the scope of the study, the total fright revenue of Turkey-oriented shipping industry is calculated to be USD 5.8 billion. Proportionately, 79.53% of the revenue belongs to foreign flagged ships, 12.70% of it belongs to foreign flagged ships with Turkish owners, and only 7.78% of it belongs to Turkish flagged ships.