Case Studies on Transport Policy最新文献

Toll roads with fully dynamic pricing schemes could play a key role in addressing the economic and environmental tolls imposed by increasing congestion levels in major metropolitan areas. Transportation professionals usually argue that they could provide additional revenue streams to accelerate the delivery of much-needed highway projects and serve as a tool for travel demand management. However, the number of dynamic pricing toll roads only increased recently in the U.S., and their performance has not been empirically evaluated systematically. This study provides a comprehensive review of U.S. dynamic pricing toll roads. Pricing is reactive to demand, and additional travel demand management strategies such as incentives for high occupancy vehicles, clean vehicles, and transit are commonly included. Both conventional project delivery methods and private–public partnerships have been used for such projects. Financial statements from a few P3 dynamic toll road projects suggest they are taking full advantage of TIFIA loans and are performing well during their short history. Equity issues are commonly raised, and many projects address them specifically through subsidies to vulnerable groups or re-investment in the community. Further quantitative analyses are needed to test if dynamic toll roads are an efficient tool to address the financial, economic, and environmental challenges major metropolitan areas face.

The international outbreak of the new coronavirus (COVID-19) at the end of 2019 has caused an indelible impact on the global economy. However, it has grown against the trend in unmanned distribution and online consumption. In recent years, the maritime industry has gradually introduced artificial intelligence, blockchain, the Internet of Things, and big data. Through literature review and expert interviews, this research figures out the development status of smart ports at home and abroad and the digital development barriers of ports and then uses the Fuzzy Delphi and the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process method to identify three dimensions and thirteen key factors target companies. The survey targets shipping companies, shipping agencies, and port management companies. The paper conducted the questionnaires to identify the critical success factors of port digitization. It was found that the “digital solutions” dimension had the highest weight value among the three dimensions and the top five critical factors in the overall ranking were based on the order of “carbon emission management,” “enhancing port safety”, “technology standardization,” “digital asset management,” and “optimization of the supply chain.” The result of this study can help port operators and shipping companies identify critical success factors of smart ports and adopt port digital development strategies for operation efficiency improvement and climate change mitigation.

Airport noise assessment and mitigation have been recognized as major challenges in the current civil aviation context. This paper aims to provide a general, simple, and flexible methodology to approximate airport noise-influenced zones and quantify the social cost of noise pollution. The proposed methodology performs this assessment without the need for specific software, monitoring stations, and sophisticated data. Airport noise-influenced zones are estimated by relying on publicly available aircraft certification data, while the social cost of such estimation is computed by taking into account the distribution of residential units located within zones affected by noise. We present an application of this method to a group of Italian and Spanish airports, as well as possible beneficial policy interventions in terms of minimization of noise impact on the population living in the airport neighborhoods. In addition, possible mitigation policies are presented in the form of noise surcharges applied to different aircraft categories.

In Italy, where bicycle culture is struggling to catch on, the Extraordinary Plan for Tourism Mobility 2017–22 aims to increase the accessibility of tourist sites through safe and pleasant cycling routes, interconnected with other modes of transport. These same objectives have been pursued by Sardinia, one of the Italian regions more attractive to tourists, through the design of a regional cycle network and a long-distance tourist cycling routes (Ciclovia della Sardegna).

The current study focuses on tourism mobility in the metropolitan city of Cagliari, the largest urban area in Sardinia, and aims to explore how much the existing and planned cycling routes constitute an alternative mobility solution for tourists who intend to reach the beaches. In particular, the study aims to evaluate the level of accessibility offered by bicycling to the beaches, which are among the most visited and attractive places for tourists, before and after the implementation of a regional bike tourism network system. A GIS-based procedure was employed and the method comprised of three main steps: (1) data collection and preparation, (2) GIS analysis, and (3) assessment of results. We performed two main types of analysis using GIS. First, we delineated service areas around each beach for various distances. Then, we overlaid and analyzed these areas in conjunction with the accommodation facilities. Second, we measured the accessibility of beaches using a gravity-based accessibility index.

Our results demonstrate that, following the implementation of the regional cycle network Sardinia, various zones in the metropolitan area of Cagliari significantly increased their level of accessibility to the beaches, while others did not. Importantly, the adopted methodology has proven to be a valid tool for assessing cycling accessibility for different infrastructure scenarios.

There have been ongoing calls for reviving the rail system in Australia to transport cattle and meat products which is thought to be more reliable transport mode than road transport. This paper aims to develop a decision support model for the road-rail network for meat and cattle transportation. This model considers animal welfare, traffic congestion, and meat quality loss due to the delay of transportation as well as the effects of a carbon tax. The proposed model generates an optimal network configuration in which each leg of the journey is conducted by the most reliable and efficient transport mode. We implement this model using the meat and cattle supply chain case of Queensland that that comprises production regions, terminals, abattoirs, seaports and distribution centers. The results indicate that the road–rail multimodal network would be preferred if animal welfare issues were prioritised. Our decision support model is expected to support policy makers in making decisions to design a transport network with optimum balance of economic and environmental goals.

Substantial funding is allocated towards building new transit infrastructure worldwide. Such large undertakings can disrupt the system and result in the suspension of some of the provided transit services. While there is a considerable number of studies that focused on understanding people’s mode choices during normal operations and short-term disruptions, little has been done to investigate travel choices during long-term disruptive periods. This paper aims at examining changes in travel choices during a long-term disruption that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic in Montréal. Using two waves of surveys, it explores the impacts of the suspension of the Deux-Montagnes train line due to the construction of a new light rail system, the Réseau express métropolitain (REM), on the travel choices of users that previously used the train line. Associations between respondents’ travel choices and socioeconomics, users’ perceptions, and spatial factors were examined, while exploring the difference between users’ anticipated travel choices reported before the suspension and their actual choices during the suspension. The results show that only around one-third of the Deux-Montagnes line’s previous users continued to use transit, while many shifted to using cars to reach the same destinations. Nevertheless, a higher percentage of users who live within an 800-metre buffer from a closed station used alternative transit options during the closure than using cars. Respondents who relied on using cars were the least likely to report that they will use the REM service in the future. The study highlights the overlooked impacts of long-term service closures.

In this paper, we present a mixed qualitative-quantitative approach to analyse the multiple dimensions of the barrier effect caused by the removal of all at-level pedestrian crossings on a railway in a residential area of Santiago, Chile, as part of a new suburban rail service. A set of interviews with a wide range of stakeholders is followed by a quantitative analysis of time delays and extra discomfort for pedestrians, as we measure both the horizontal and vertical detours on walking distance and time, due to having to cross on pedestrian overpasses and underpasses. We find that (i) the new suburban rail service is a source of social inclusion on a metropolitan scale (accessibility gains) and of social exclusion on a more local scale, due to a barrier effect (ii) the confinement of the railway produces strong negative impacts on pedestrians that need to cross the railway, by increasing walking times and by worsening their perception of security and comfort (iii) underpasses and overpasses increase between twofold and fourfold the time needed to cross the railway on average, relative to the case of at-level crossings, (iv) taking into account the increased physical burden and insecurity perceived on overpasses and underpasses, weighted walking times increase up to ten times relative to at-level crossing, and (v) women, elderly people and pedestrians with heavy luggage are more affected by the increased walking time. Traditional methods employed to analyse large-scale transport projects should assess the negative implications of the barrier effect on local communities, as well as the relief measures designed to reduce local segregation, especially in vulnerable communities. The results of this study are useful to quantify the social value of such relief measures, particularly in highly unequal urban settings.

Increasing the number and quality of bicycle parking facilities is essential to promoting cycling. However, quantifying the benefits of such improvements is difficult and has not yet been the focus of research. Apart from rule-of-half-based approaches, logsum analysis is a method for estimating the consumer surplus of measures, reflecting actual behavior.

This paper presents such an analysis of a set of measures on the RWTH Aachen University campus as a case study. Considering only the direct consumer surplus, the economic efficiency of the analyzed measures diverges significantly. The replacement of inadequate front wheel racks has the best consumer surplus-cost ratio, while the construction of bicycle parking stations has the worst. Taking into account modal shift effects and related changes in externalities and reduced demand for car parking, the cost-benefit ratios of the measures would be much higher. Even though the presented logsum approach ignores these second-order effects and focuses exclusively on economic efficiency, it is still useful in practice for prioritizing potential measures. Apart from that, the results show that groups of cyclists benefit differently from certain types of measures depending on their student status, employee group, and the resale value of their bicycle. Additionally, the analysis emphasizes the importance of including informal parking when modeling bicycle parking behavior.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, society realized that many activities could be conducted remotely, achieving similar or superior results. Several trends were anticipated and consolidated, such as remote work and hybrid activities. In this context, the air transport market was also profoundly affected, and we are still trying to understand the size and depth of the ongoing changes. It has become crucial for airline market strategies to evaluate how the behavior of business passenger demand has changed, considering the new conditions created and the intensified use of information and communication technology (ICT) tools, particularly videoconferencing. The article aims to identify and analyze the factors that have influenced the number of domestic business flights in Braziĺs post-pandemic era, focusing on the increased use of ICT. It applied a logit model to a database collected at Congonhas Airport in São Paulo, the second busiest airport in the country and the seventh in Latin America, which operates only domestic flights and is used mainly for business trips. Findings showed that the most significant variables influencing reduced travel for work were the number of trips made, the company’s market segment, and travelers’ perceptions about how the company dealt with topics such as productivity, employee well-being, videoconference use, and airline ticket purchases. With this understanding, airlines can develop more effective advertising strategies, enhance ticket sales, and prospect customers in more promising market niches.