Happy or liberal? Making sense of behavior in transport policy design

Appropriate microeconomic foundations of mobility are decisive for successful policy design in transportation and, in particular, for the challenge of climate change mitigation. Recent research suggests that behavior in transportation cannot be adequately represented by the standard approach of revealed preferences. Moreover, mobility choices are influenced by factors widely regarded as normatively irrelevant. Here we draw on insights from behavioral economics, psychology and welfare theory to examine how transport users make mobility decisions and when it is desirable to modify them through policy interventions. First, we explore systematically which preferences, heuristics and decision processes are relevant for mobility-specific behavior, such as mode choice. We highlight the influence of infrastructure on the formation of travel preferences. Second, we argue that the behavioral account of decision-making requires policy-makers to take a position on whether transport policies should be justified by appealing to preference satisfaction or to raising subjective well-being. This distinction matters because of the (i) influence of infrastructure on preference formation, (ii) health benefits from non-motorized mobility, (iii) negative impact of commuting on happiness and (iv) status-seeking behavior of individuals. The orthodox approach of only internalizing externalities is insufficient because it does not allow for the evaluation of these effects. Instead, our analysis suggests that transport demand modeling should consider behavioral effects explicitly.     

幸福感在交通政策中的作用

幸福感、生活质量和幸福正逐渐影响众多不同领域,例如经济、国家标准和公共健康。尽管心理幸福感的重要性日益受到重视,但却鲜有人关注交通系统对生活满意度的影响。首先,探讨幸福感在交通政策中所发挥的作用,并阐述幸福感对未来交通政策的启发作用。其次,回顾心理学文献,提出一个假设的模型即交通会通过提高重要生活领域的可达性或者物质环境的机动性及外部性从而对生活满意度产生间接或直接影响。对交通领域的初步研究为该模型提供了支持。最后,阐述政策建议和可使用该框架进行研究的领域。     

Discussing the “positive utilities” of autonomous vehicles: will travellers really use their time productively?

ABSTRACT

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are expected to reshape travel behaviour and demand in part by enabling productive uses of travel time—a primary component of the “positive utility of travel” concept—thus reducing subjective values of travel time savings (VOT). Many studies from industry and academia have assumed significant increases in travel time use and reductions in VOT for AVs. In this position paper, I argue that AVs’ VOT impacts may be more modest than anticipated and derive from a different source. Vehicle designs and operations may limit activity engagement during travel, with AV users feeling more like car passengers than train riders. Furthermore, shared AVs may attenuate travel time use benefits, and productivity gains could be limited to long-distance trips. Although AV riders will likely have greater activity participation during travel, many in-vehicle activities today may be more about coping with commuting burdens than productively using travel time. Instead, VOT reductions may be more likely to arise from a different “positive utility”—subjective well-being improvements through reduced stresses of driving or the ability to relax and mentally transition. Given high uncertainty, further empirical research on the experiential, time use, and VOT impacts of AVs is needed.     

农村扶贫中非政府组织的作用

在建设社会主义新农村的新阶段,农村扶贫问题却面临着新的形势,单单政府的反贫困已经不能满足当今农村扶贫的需要,扶贫越来越需要动用更多的社会力量,在这之中非政府(NGO)组织的作用不可低估。本文将从NGO在我国的发展、NGO参与扶贫的必要性、NGO参与农村扶贫的相关问题等视角对我国农村扶贫中NGO的参与进行探讨。     

改善民生是巩固党的执政地位的战略基础

民生问题是构建社会主义和谐社会的根本和关键所在,是巩固党的执政地位的基础。解决好民生问题,对于构建社会主义和谐社会、巩固党的执政地位具有全局性、根本性和长远性指导意义。     

Motility as a policy objective

Western literature abounds with powerful imagery of mobility and travel, extolling the richness of experience and learning that can only happen along the way. The more common policy and research contexts consider travel and mobility as an important means to an end, valued relative to the destination activity. This review builds on the research that considers on-the-way benefits in order to expand this perspective as a part of transport studies. The question posed is if there is a place to evaluate mobility as a life-enhancing activity in its own right, directly contributing to the capacity for autonomy and freedom of choice that are central elements of personal well-being. Motility or mobility capital, defined as the capacity for mobility, offers a theoretical context for this purpose. The literature has adopted motility for its ability to broaden the understanding of mobility choices, by structuring a role for material, human, social and cultural capital as contributing to an individual’s capacity for mobility. The context of individual capital implies that motility holds value not only as an input to mobility choices, but also through its exchange value with other forms of capital, thereby promoting broader contexts for human flourishing. Therefore, motility has value as a policy objective for its contribution to individual well-being and this article further argues that it is through mobility experiences that this type of capital can be advanced.     

Introducing advanced electronic driver support systems: An exploration of market and technological uncertainties

R&D in the field of driver support systems is increasingly paid attention to. These systems can contribute significantly to public traffic goals. However, there is much uncertainty about future technology developments, market introduction, and impacts on driver and traffic behaviour. An international Delphi study collecting expert opinions on these issues is partly described here. The Delphi study was organized in three rounds. Opinions of 50 experts from the USA, Japan and Europe were collected. The paper is limited to market introduction, and technological and driver-behavioural barriers. The main conclusion is that future developments are less obvious than often assumed.     

Well-being and Transport: Taking Stock and Looking Forward

ABSTRACT

It is only recently that researchers have attempted to directly link transport to models of well-being and in turn try to map transport's linkages to well-being outcomes. This paper seeks to add to this new literature by introducing a dynamic model of well-being, which highlights the different domains that make up well-being, and in turn — through providing one of the most holistic and comprehensive discussions of the current well-being literature — provide an evaluation of our current understanding of transport's relationship to well-being. The paper also seeks to highlight the different dimensions and complexities of seeking to monitor and improve well-being through transport policy. It will in turn be argued that the varied and complex sets of outcomes that arise from transport policy interventions, and the multiple ways in which they affect well-being, make a well-being approach (that measures policy outcomes in terms of units of well-being) of particular value for policy-makers. However, due to the complexities in comparing positive well-being outcomes, it is argued that the best use of well-being evidence for the transport sector may be to try to minimise the negative effects on well-being caused by policy outcomes.     

广西交通系统领导干部身心健康状况访谈调查与分析

文章基于对广西交通系统领导干部身心健康状况的调查，分析了影响广西交通系统领导干部身心健康的主要因素，提出完善领导干部身心健康状况的建议。     

Using Socioeconomic and Fisheries Involvement Indices to Understand Alaska Fishing Community Well-Being

Over recent years, fisheries managers have been going through a paradigm shift to prioritize ecosystem-based management. With this comes an increasing need to better understand the impacts of fisheries management decisions on the social well-being and sustainability of fishing communities. This article summarizes research aimed at using secondary data to develop socioeconomic and fisheries involvement indices to measure objective fishing community well-being in Alaska. Data from more than 300 communities in Alaska were used to create a database of socioeconomic and fisheries involvement indices of objective well-being and adaptability for Alaska communities dependent on marine resources. Each index was developed using a principal components factor analysis to assess the relative position of each community compared to all other communities in Alaska. We find that creating performance measures, such as the indices presented here, provides a useful way to track the status of socioeconomic conditions and fisheries involvement by communities over time.