Economics of Transportation最新文献

To tax vehicles such that market distortions are minimized and environmental goals are promoted, policymakers must determine whether consumers correctly assess automobile prices versus future costs of ownership. Drawing from data spanning 2006 to 2015 for Japan's new car market, we apply the aggregate random coefficients logit model to estimate consumer demand with rich substitution patterns. We find that Japanese consumers primarily focused on fuel costs and future registration taxes followed by vehicle purchase prices. This finding implies that promoting eco-friendly vehicles requires Japanese policymakers' attention to fuel and vehicle registration taxes. This finding also suggests that salient features of preferential tax treatment in the auto market distort consumer preferences toward future costs. Counterfactual experiments under a fixed amount of tax revenue reveal that raising fuel taxes improves average fuel economy more than registration taxes do at the expense of broader social welfare.

When travellers connect to a transit service from a different mode, they must arrive at the connection in a timely manner. If there is uncertainty about the required time to meet the connection, some users might engage in risky behavior by, e.g., increasing their traveling speed. We examine whether the frequency level at a transfer connection may influence the incentive to engage in such risky behavior. We develop an optimization model in which users select an optimal speed in a two-stage process. A simulation study is performed to study the behavior within a wide range of possible preferences and trip characteristics. Our results suggest that increasing the departure frequency may provide a greater incentive for engaging in risky behavior – increasing social costs by increasing the number of accidents. The result is dependent upon average trip length, the initial frequency and the user's perception of scheduling cost. Policy makers should consider the possibly increased accident costs when altering the service level at a transfer connection.

I analyze the spatial relationship between entry and airfares in the U.S. airline industry. I define the spatial relationship between adjacent airports based on catchment overlap, and evaluate the spatial impact of entry on fares. Using a fixed-effects estimator, I find that the impact of LCC entry on prices is not only larger than that of Legacy entry, but also influences prices at more distant airports. Owing to endogeneity concerns in the estimates, I also consider quasi-experimental evidence from the expiry of the Wright Amendment, which resulted in rapid and dramatic entry by Southwest Airlines from Dallas. Echoing the descriptive results, I find a broad spatial impact of entry by Southwest on rivals’ airfares. Overall, evidence suggests that current approaches to market definition in the airline industry may be overly restrictive, and I recommend researchers consider grouping a broader set of airports when defining markets.

This paper studies the effect of competition and consumer foresight on platform profits. The focus is on airports, which provide passengers with aeronautical and commercial services through airlines and retailers. Our results can be summarized as follows. First, we unravel the relationship between consumer foresight and the optimal pricing of the two services. When passengers are myopic, they undervalue the surplus they derive from the retail services, so that the airport charges low landing fees and makes profits from the retail business. When passengers are foresighted, they better anticipate the surplus from the retail services, so that the airport changes its strategy by charging higher landing fees and boosting competition in the retail sector. Second, we find that the relationship between profits and consumer foresight strictly depends on the considered market structure. When the airport has no competitors, airport profits are non-decreasing in the degree of consumer foresight. By contrast, under duopoly competition, a weakly-negative correlation between airport profits and consumer foresight is observed. These results allow to derive two main managerial implications. First, airport competition can lead to higher landing fees. Second, under competition, an airport is not necessarily interested in informing passengers about its retail facilities. However, an extension where airports decide whether to set an advertising campaign to inform passengers about their retail facilities reveals that they end up locked in a Prisoner’s Dilemma.

This paper investigates the impact of the freeway “Salerno-Reggio Calabria” on long-term local economic development. Built between 1962 and 1974, the freeway connected the southernmost region of the Italian peninsula (Calabria) to the national highway network. According to the original plan, the freeway could have been built along three different routes. The final choice was mostly influenced by powerful politicians who lobbied in favor of the path crossing their constituency (the town of Cosenza). In a differences-in-differences framework, we compare the growth of “inconsequentially” treated municipalities – traversed only because they lie on the route connecting Cosenza – with the one of municipalities on the two discarded paths. Our results suggest that the freeway caused a significant reorganization of both economic activity and population from untreated to treated locations. At the same time, the infrastructure does not seem to have helped the convergence of the overall region.

Many passengers can choose among various destinations for their flight trips (for instance, a leisure trip from Asia to Europe or the US). This study tests the sensitivity of the outcomes of equilibrium congestion policies with respect to changes in airport network and demand structures. A major feature is to incorporate substitute destination choices for origin–destination passengers into the analysis of equilibrium airport congestion policies involving slot or pricing policies. The analysis shows that the presence of substitute destination choices is a necessary condition for equilibrium slot quantities to reach the first-best outcome that maximizes the welfare of all airport regions whereas equilibrium pricing levels will always be too high relative to the first-best prices independent of the presence or absence of substitute destination choices. Examples based on specific functional forms and numerical simulations are used to illustrate the main results.

The rapid increase in private cars has exacerbated urban traffic and environmental problems. As an alternative to private cars, carsharing is more economical and environmentally friendly than private cars and is becoming internationally recognized as sustainable transportation. However, the benefits of carsharing in alleviating traffic and environmental problems would only be significant when many travelers switch from private cars to carsharing. Thus, understanding travelers' dynamic selection processes when choosing between carsharing and private cars is important in promoting carsharing. Assuming that travelers' behavior regarding travel mode choice conforms to the principle of maximizing random utility, a logit evolutionary game model based on logit dynamics and evolutionary game theory was constructed to explain and analyze the dynamic selection processes and mechanisms by which travelers choose between carsharing and private cars. In addition to the traditional time and monetary cost, the psychological benefit of the driving experience was also considered in the travelers’ payment functions. The unique global stable equilibrium point of the logit dynamic evolution model was derived through mathematical analysis. Data computed from a simple interview survey in Qingdao City were then used to perform an experimental numerical analysis on the evolutionary model of this study to further explain the dynamic evolution. Moreover, the relationships between the evolutionarily stable points and the time cost, monetary cost, and driving experience benefit differences between carsharing and private cars are discussed. The relationships between the benefits of the negative externalities of carsharing and private cars and the evolutionarily stable points are also examined. Furthermore, four scenarios are established, and their corresponding evolutionarily stable points are discussed to explain the influence of adjusting the external circumstances on the evolutionarily stable point. Finally, based on practical application, suggestions for encouraging travelers to use carsharing rather than private cars are provided to help carsharing organizations, government departments, and other related institutions.

Cooperative vehicle platooning enabled by connected automated vehicle (CAV) technology has been identified to bring energy savings and driving-effort reduction. However, the intrinsic difference of gained benefits between the leading vehicle and the following vehicles hampers the spontaneous platooning via peer-to-peer coordination. This study proposes an auction mechanism that determines the leader–follower positioning together with the associated benefits, for facilitating the formation and maintaining the behavioral stability of vehicle platoons in a distributed way. We theoretically prove that there is no mechanism to achieve an efficient outcome in an ex post equilibrium, requiring individual rationality and budget balance. In this regard, we provide a truthful $\epsilon$-approximate auction mechanism that deploys a linear transfer function, which guarantees that the implemented outcome is an efficient approximate dominant strategy equilibrium.

This paper studies the effects of concession revenue sharing contracts to analyze how airport–airline vertical structures compete for passengers in the same catchment area. The analysis studies the effects of such contracts depending on airport ownership structure. We show that private airports tend to share less concession revenues than public ones eventually leading to lower welfare levels. These results have relevant policy implications when concession revenue sharing contracts are specified in practice.

This paper presents a stylised econometric model for the demand for on-street parking with focus on the estimation of the elasticity of demand concerning the full cost of parking. The full cost of parking consists of a parking fee and the cost of searching for a vacant parking space (cruising). The cost of cruising is usually unobserved. Ignoring this issue implies a downward bias of the elasticity of demand for the total cost of parking since the cost of cruising depends on the number of cars parked. We demonstrate that, even when the cost of cruising is unobserved, the demand elasticity can be identified by extending the econometric model to include the spatial interaction between the parking facilities. We illustrate the model with on-street parking data from Copenhagen and find indications of a somewhat greater parking demand elasticity than is usually reported in the literature.