Heavy-duty trucking and the energy efficiency paradox: Evidence from focus groups and interviews

Theory suggests that profit maximizing firms have an incentive to incorporate cost-effective technologies into their products. However, simple net present value calculations comparing upfront costs of fuel-saving technologies to future savings suggest this is not always the case. This puzzle is commonly referred to as the “energy efficiency paradox.” A growing number of empirical studies examine why households may under-invest in energy efficiency. Fewer studies examine similar undervaluation by businesses. We explore investment decisions within the heavy-duty trucking sector for fuel-saving technologies via focus groups and interviews to gain insight into what factors might explain apparent underinvestment in fuel-saving technologies. We find some evidence that market failures related to lack of information about technology performance and network externalities contribute to slow adoption of some technologies. However, information about new technologies for tractors seems to generate limited spillovers. There is also some evidence of split incentives between owners and drivers, though companies have invested in a variety of technologies and approaches in an attempt to address these effects. Other factors important in trucking investment decisions that are not classic market failures include tradeoffs between fuel economy and other valued truck attributes, as well as uncertainty and risk associated with new technologies if decision-makers are loss averse.     

浅谈曹妃甸煤码头二期工程的项目管理

目前,我国港口施工企业正处在迅速扩张期,但也暴露出部分施工企业、项目部在内部基础管理和施工人员素质方面的一些突出问题.在深入分析研究某港口码头工程施工项目管理工作的基础上,通过总结经验、查找问题,以期探求大型港口工程项目管理的内在规律.     

汽车零件不良概率推算方法

汽车零部件出现不良时,需要对不良发生率进行准确评估,判断质量风险,因此需要寻求一种简便准确的计算方法。文章从实物不良原因分析入手,通过选定合适的零件质量特性,对采集的计量型数据进行概率统计分析,推算出不良发生比率。经过验证,计算结果与实际一致。说明运用此方法能够准确计算不良零部件数量及比率,在实际工作中运用效果良好。     

政府投资项目建设过程中影响工程投资的问题及建议

针对政府投资项目中存在的一些不规范性,该文从五个方面较为详细地阐述了存在的问题,分析了产生这些问题的原因,并提出了相关的建议。     

市场随机波动下干散货和原油船投资决策研究

运用实物期权博弈理论,建立了航运市场随机波动情况下干散货和原油船舶的投资决策模型,得出了承运人之间同质竞争和差异化竞争时船舶的最优投资准则.理论研究和实证分析均表明:承运人的收益和投资船舶的边际收益随航运市场规模和风险的增加而增加;最优的船舶投资量与航运市场的规模和风险正相关;随着航运市场竞争的加剧,承运人的收益和最优的船舶投资量呈下降趋势;随着承运人之间服务差异化程度的增加,承运人的收益和最优的船舶投资量呈上升趋势.     

公路交通投资与经济增长的关系

区域公路交通投资与经济增长之间相互影响的课题是交通领域中未解决的问题之一.基于格兰杰因果关系检验的基本原理与回归分析方法建立数学模型研究区域公路交通投资与经济增长之间的内在依存关系.经济发展的不同阶段,区域的公路交通投资与GDP总量之间均存在着互为因果关系.相同阶段经济增长与公路交通投资的相互之间推动作用不同.1978...     

码头建设投资对最佳泊位利用率影响的研究

港口工程的设计原则之一是使港口企业、船公司和货主三方的在港费用总和最低,追求国民经济效益的最大化.海港总平面设计规范中的最佳泊位利用率是某一范围内的推荐值,与码头投资无关.以某业主码头原油泊位为例,根据排队论原理利用计算机模拟技术推算出的最佳泊位利用率,超出了规范推荐值的范围,分析其原因是码头投资过大.采用4组假定的不...     

Anticipating new-highway impacts: Opportunities for welfare analysis and credit-based congestion pricing

Pricing of roadways opens doors for infrastructure financing, and congestion pricing seeks to address inefficiencies in roadway operations. This paper emphasizes the revenue-generation opportunities and welfare impacts of flat-tolling schemes, standard congestion pricing, and credit-based congestion pricing policies. While most roadway investment decisions focus on travel time savings for existing trips, this work turns to logsum differences (which quantify changes in consumer surplus) for nested logit specifications across two traveler types, two destinations, three modes and three times of day, in order to arrive at welfare- and revenue-maximizing solutions. This behavioral specification is quite flexible, and facilitates benefit-cost calculations (as well as equity analysis), as demonstrated in this paper.The various cases examined suggest significant opportunities for financing new roadway investment while addressing congestion and equity issues, with net gains for both traveler types. Application results illustrate how, even after roadway construction and maintenance costs are covered, receipts may remain to distribute to eligible travelers so that typical travelers can be made better off than if a new, non-tolled road had been constructed. Moreover, tolling both routes (new and old) results in substantially shorter payback periods (5 versus 20 years) and higher welfare outcomes (in the case of welfare-maximizing tolls with credit distributions to all travelers). The tools and techniques highlighted here illustrate practical methods for identifying welfare-enhancing and cost-recovering investment opportunities, while recognizing multiple user classes and appropriate demand elasticity across times of day, destinations, modes and routes.     

一种管理用资产负债表和利润表的编制及应用

传统资产负债表和利润表对于非专业人员来说,解读起来有一定的困难。本文介绍一种新的报表编制方式,可以让报表使用者能很方便的从经营、投资和筹资三个方面对企业报表进行解读和分析。新报表非常适合非专业人员在企业管理过程中使用。     

A test of inter-modal performance measures for transit investment decisions

Choices among alternative transit capital investments are often complex and politically controversial. There is renewed interest in the use of performance indicators to assist in making rational and defensible choices for the investment of public funds. To improve the evaluation of rail and bus performance and provide more useful information for transit investment decision-makers, it is important to use performance indicators that fairly and efficiently compare different transit modes. This paper proposes a set of inter-modal performance indicators in which service input, service output, and service consumption are measured by total cost, revenue capacity miles/hours, and unlinked passenger trips/miles respectively based on economic principles and evaluation objectives. The proposed improvements involve the inclusion of capital as well as operating costs in such comparisons, and the recognition of the widely varying capacities of transit vehicles for seated and standing passengers. Two California cases, the Los Angeles – Long Beach Corridor and the Market/Judah Corridor in San Francisco, are used for testing their usefulness in the evaluation of the efficiency and effectiveness of rail and bus services. The results show substantial differences between performance indicators in current use and those proposed in this study. The enhanced inter-modal performance indicators are more appropriate for comparing the efficiency and effectiveness of different modes or a combination of transit modes at the corridor and system levels where most major investment decisions are made. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.