Striking a balance between societal benefits and costs of transportation lies at the heart of transport planning and transport systems analysis. Increased transport and urbanization enable the many ...benefits of modern socieities through specialization of labour, production and lifestyles – but these trends simultaneously increase the drawbacks of transportation, such as carbon emissions, congestion, noise and air quality problems. Technical developments and improved infrastrastructure can help reduce these drawbacks, but they do not solve the fundamental problem that those reaping the benefits of transport – travellers, firms, customers – do not perceive the full social costs of transportation. To balance transport costs and benefits, efficient pricing is necessary. Despite a wealth of theoretical arguments, technical developments and substantial practical experience, efficient transport pricing is still rare. Focusing on the example of urban congestion pricing, this paper summarizes why transport pricing is needed, lessons learnt from practical experience, and what the main obstacles are. The two most important obstacles seem to be political power struggles between different levels of governments, and that even if total social gains vastly exceed total social losses, the losses tend to be more salient; losers tend to be easy to identify, while winners tend to be more dispersed and perhaps only exist in the future.
•The paper discusses whether the pandemic will reduce travel volumes in the long term.•This could be due to increased digital maturity or to new habits.•Historically, potential travel time savings ...from improved communication and faster transport have been exchanged for more accessibility.•Aggregate travel time has remained unchanged, and average trip distances have increased.•Given the accessibility premiums of modern societies, it seems unlikely that there will be lasting reductions on travel volumes.
During the pandemic, passenger transport has decreased dramatically due to restrictions and recommendations to avoid social contacts. Hopes and expectations have been raised that experiences, habits and improved digital services developed or discovered during the pandemic can lead to a permanent decrease of travel volumes even in the long run, thereby reducing emissions, noise and congestion. This paper discusses this question, based on descriptive analyses of historical development of travel distances and travel times in Sweden, including a description of how transportation changed in Sweden during the pandemic. Obviously, it is too early to give a conclusive answer regarding long run effects, but judging from historical experiences of previous improvements in transportation and communication, it seems unlikely that increased digital experience, improved digital services or changed habits will lead to permanently reduced travel volumes. It appears more likely that improved digital services and increased digital maturity will continue to transform work, shopping and leisure, but that this will not translate into decreased physical travel to any large extent.
Experiences from the Swedish Value of Time study Börjesson, Maria; Eliasson, Jonas
Transportation research. Part A, Policy and practice,
January 2014, 2014-01-00, 2014, Letnik:
59
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
•We present insights and results from the Swedish VTTS study relevant for appraisal.•We summarize recent econometric advances and how these enable better VTTS estimates.•The influence of sign and ...size of the time saving is estimated and discussed.•We show how the VTTS depends on trip and traveller characteristics including income.•We review and discuss in what dimensions VTTS should be differentiated in appraisal.
We provide a synthesis of results and insights from the Swedish Value of Time study, with focus on what is relevant for transport appraisal and understanding travel behavior. We summarize recent econometric advances, and show how these enable a better understanding and identification of the value of time distribution. The influence of the sign and size of changes is estimated and discussed, including the problems of loss aversion and the value of small time savings. Further, we show how the value of time depends on trip and traveler characteristics, discuss in what dimensions the value of time should be differentiated in appraisal, and provide recommended values for use in applied transport appraisal.
This paper presents a cost–benefit analysis of the Stockholm congestion charging system, based on the observed rather than on the model-forecasted data. The most important data sources are travel ...time and traffic flow measurements made in the year before the charges were introduced (during April 2005) and during the first spring with the charges (during April 2006, 4 months after the charges were introduced). Using matrix calibration, effects on the non-observed link flows and travel times are extrapolated, enabling us to calculate the social value of changes in travel times and travel costs. Impacts on traffic safety and emissions are calculated using standard Swedish CBA relationships. The system is shown to yield a significant social surplus, well enough to cover both investment and operating costs, provided that it is kept for a reasonable lifetime: investment and startup costs are “recovered” in terms of social benefits in around 4 years.
► Cyclists’ value of time is estimated to 16€/h (street) and 11€/h (bike lane). ► This is almost twice as high as the value of time on respondents’ second-best mode. ► Only 17% of responding cyclists ...would go by car if they did not cycle. ► Most cyclists are aware of health benefits and take them into account when choosing mode.
We estimate the value of time savings, different cycling environments and additional benefits in cost–benefit analysis of cycling investments. Cyclists’ value of travel time savings turns out to be high, considerably higher than the value of time savings on alternative modes. Cyclists also value other improvements highly, such as separated bicycle lanes. As to additional benefits of cycling improvements in the form of health and reduced car traffic, our results do not support the notion that these will be a significant part in a cost–benefit analysis. Bicyclists seem to take health largely into account when making their travel choices, implying that it would be double-counting to add total health benefits to the analysis once the consumer surplus has been correctly calculated. As to reductions in car traffic, our results indicate that the cross-elasticity between car and cycle is low, and hence benefits from traffic reductions will be small. However, the valuations of improved cycling speeds and comfort are so high that it seems likely that improvements for cyclists are cost-effective compared to many other types of investments, without having to invoke second-order, indirect effects. In other words, our results suggest that bicycle should be viewed as a competitive mode of travel and not primarily as a means to achieve improved health or reduced car traffic.
The Stockholm congestion charging trial in 2006 demonstrated the effects of a full-scale time-differentiated urban road toll scheme. Improvements in travel times were large enough to be perceived by ...the general public. This was pivotal to the radical change of public attitudes that occurred during the trial and that resulted in a positive outcome of a subsequent referendum on a proposal for making the system permanent. This paper summarises the effects of the trial and analyses to what extent targets were met. Effects on congestion reduction were larger than anticipated, which also resulted in favourable economic and environmental effects. The trial showed that a single-cordon toll could affect traffic within a large area, i.e., not just close to the zone limits.
The standard method of estimating the value of travel time variability for use in policy appraisal is to estimate the parameters of a reduced-form utility function, where some measure of travel time ...variability (such as the standard deviation) is included. A problem with this approach is that the obtained valuation will in general depend on the standardized travel time distribution, and hence cannot be transferred from one context to another. A recently suggested remedy for this problem has been to estimate a scheduling model, which in theory is transferrable, and use the implied reduced-form to derive valuations for use in appraisal. In this paper we estimate both a scheduling model and the implied reduced-form model, using stated choice data. The valuation of travel time variability implied by the scheduling model turns out to be substantially smaller than what is obtained from a reduced-form model estimated on the same sample. The results suggest that the scheduling model does not capture all of the disutility arising from travel time variability. Hence, although it can be shown that scheduling and reduced-form models are theoretically equivalent, that hypothesized equivalence is not reflected in the empirical evidence. We speculate that the derivation of reduced-form models from an underlying scheduling model omits two essential features: first, the notion of an exogenously fixed "preferred arrival time" neglects the fact that most activities can be rescheduled given full information about the travel times in advance, and second, disutility may be derived from uncertainty as such, in the form of anxiety, decisions costs or costs for having contingency plans. We also report our estimates of the valuation of travel time variability for public transit trips, for use in applied appraisal.
We explore how benefit-cost efficiency and electoral support affect road investment decisions in Sweden and Norway. In Norway, neither benefits nor costs seem to affect project selection. In Sweden, ...civil servants' decisions are strongly affected by projects' benefit-cost
ratios, with a stronger effect for more expensive projects, while politicians' decisions are only weakly affected, and only for small projects. In both countries, governments tend to favour investments in regions where they enjoy strong local electoral support. Using cost efficiency as a final
selection criterion seems to filter out many inefficient projects already at an early stage of the planning process.
This paper discusses and analyses whether congestion charges can be considered to be “fair” in different senses of the word. Two different perspectives are distinguished: the consumer perspective and ...the citizen perspective. The consumer perspective is the traditional one in equity analyses, and includes changes in travel costs, travel times and so on. Using data from four European cities, I show that high-income groups pay more than low-income groups, but low-income groups pay a larger share of their income. I argue that which of these distributional measures is most appropriate depends on the purpose(s) of the charging system. The citizen perspective is about individuals’ views of social issues such as equity, procedural fairness and environmental issues. I argue that an individual can be viewed as a “winner” from a citizen perspective if a reform (such as congestion pricing) is aligned with her views of what is socially desirable. Using the same data set, I analyse to what extent different income groups “win” or “lose” from a citizen perspective – i.e., to what extent congestion pricing is aligned with the societal preferences of high- and low-income groups. It turns out that these differences are small, but overall, middle-income groups “win” the most in this sense.
•Distributional impacts and attitudes are analysed in four cities.•High-income groups pay more tolls, but less as a share of income.•Whether this is “fair” depends on whether charges are fiscal or corrective.•Almost no systematic differences in citizen attitudes across income groups.•Socio-political attitudes are at least as important for attitudes to charges as self-interest.
► We investigate train passengers’ monetary valuation of unexpected delays. ► The commonly used “average delay” approach does not hold. ► The disutility of delays increases slower than linearly in ...the delay risk. ► Using the average delay for evaluation will underestimate the value of small risks. ► Valuations of “average delay” will depend on the delay risk level in the study.
We investigate how passengers on long-distance trains value unexpected delays relative to scheduled travel time and travel cost. For scheduled services with high reliability and long headways, the value of delays is most commonly assumed to be proportional to the average delay. By exploring how the valuation of train delays depends on delay risk and delay length, using three different stated choice data sets, we find that the “average delay” approach does not hold: the disutility increases slower than linearly in the delay risk. This means that using the average delay as a performance indicator, a guide for operations planning or for investment appraisal will underestimate the value of small risks of long delays relative to large risks for short delays. It also means that estimated valuations of “average delay” will depend on the delay risk level: valuations will be higher the lower the risk levels in the study are.
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