In low- and middle-income countries, Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) can be an attractive alternative to the widespread use of traditional kerosene. Not only is LPG a relatively clean, safe and ...cost-effective fuel for households, its large-scale adoption also reduces the heavy burden of kerosene consumption subsidies on government budgets. Against this background, we evaluate the impact of a large government program to substitute LPG for kerosene in Indonesia. Using a household survey across urban, suburban and rural regions we find that this program was very effective in causing a large scale shift from kerosene to LPG. This shift was positively influenced by level of education, household size and household income. Contradicting the energy-ladder model, the LPG program, reinforced by an increase in the price of kerosene, led to increased stacking of fuels, including increasing consumption of both electricity and traditional biomass. In addition, our analysis shows that the LPG program failed to substantially reduce the overall number of energy-poor people, but it has been effective in alleviating extreme energy-poverty. Finally, we find that medium and higher income households in suburban areas benefitted most from the LPG program.
•Impact evaluation of a government program to substitute LPG for kerosene in Indonesia.•The program caused a large scale shift from kerosene to LPG.•Contradicting the energy-ladder model, the program led to increased stacking of fuels.•The program did not substantially reduce overall energy poverty, but alleviated extreme energy-poverty.•Medium and higher income households in suburban areas benefitted most from the LPG program.
•We synthesized case study evidence for agricultural land use change in Europe.•Agricultural change was manifested as intensification and disintensification.•Major land use change trajectories relate ...to globalization, societal change and post-socialism.•Land manager characteristics are important moderators of agricultural land use changes.
Agricultural land use in Europe has changed considerably in the last decades. However, our understanding of agricultural land use changes, especially changes in land use intensity, is limited because the evidence is fragmented. This paper presents a systematic review of case study evidence on manifestations and underlying drivers for agricultural land use change in Europe. We analyzed 137 studies that together report on 76 cases of intensification and 143 cases of disintensification. Observed changes were manifested as expansion or contraction of agricultural land as well as in changes of land management intensity, landscape elements, agricultural land use activity, and specialization/diversification. Economic, technological, institutional and location factors were frequently identified as underlying drivers, while demographic drivers and sociocultural drivers were mentioned less often. In addition, we found that farmers were very important as moderators between underlying drivers and manifestations of agricultural land use change. Farmer decisions differed between different farmer types, and according to their characteristics and attitudes. We found major land use change trajectories in relation to globalization of agricultural markets, the transition from a rural to an urban society, and the shift to post-socialism in central and eastern Europe.
This paper presents a survey of the empirical literature on the effects of climate change and weather conditions on the transport sector. Despite mixed evidence on many issues, several patterns can ...be observed. On a global scale especially shifts in tourism and agricultural production due to increased temperatures may lead to shifts in passenger and freight transport. The predicted rise in sea levels and the associated increase in frequency and intensity of storm surges and flooding incidences may furthermore be some of the most worrying consequences of climate change, especially for coastal areas. Climate change related shifts in weather patterns might also cause infrastructure disruptions. Clear patterns are that precipitation affects road safety by increasing accident frequency but decreasing severity. Precipitation also increases congestion, especially during peak hours. Furthermore, an increased frequency of low water levels may considerably increase costs of inland waterway transport. Despite these insights, the net impact of climate change on generalised costs of the various transport modes are uncertain and ambiguous, with a possible exception for inland waterway transport.
The propensity to travel by rail, and not, for example by car, can be considered to be a factor of the rail service offered, the access to it and the characteristics of the population served. Efforts ...to increase rail use usually focus on the rail service itself while the accessibility of the rail network receives less attention. In this context, the paper has two broad aims. First, to evaluate how important the ‘access-to-the-station’ part of a rail journey is to passengers in their overall satisfaction with the rail journey and second, to investigate the balance between characteristics of the service, the access to it and the population served in determining rail use in different parts of the rail network. The analysis is carried out for the Netherlands. To achieve the first aim, we use the Dutch Railways customer satisfaction survey and apply principal component analysis and derived importance techniques to assess the relative importance of accessibility in determining the overall satisfaction with the rail journey. For the second aim, we use regression analysis to explain, at the Dutch postcode level, the propensity to use rail. We find that satisfaction with the level and quality of the access to the station is an important dimension of the rail journey which influences the overall satisfaction from that journey and that the quality and level of accessibility is an important element in explaining rail use. The conclusion reached is that in many parts of the rail network improving and expanding access services to the railway station can substitute for improving and expanding the services provided on the rail network and that it is probably more cost efficient when the aim is to increase rail use. These parts of the network are mainly in the periphery where the current level of rail service is relatively low.
Railway stations function as nodes in transport networks and places in an urban environment. They have accessibility and environmental impacts, which contribute to property value. The literature on ...the effects of railway stations on property value is mixed in its finding in respect to the impact magnitude and direction, ranging from a negative to an insignificant or a positive impact. This paper attempts to explain the variation in the findings by meta-analytical procedures. Generally the variations are attributed to the nature of data, particular spatial characteristics, temporal effects and methodology. Railway station proximity is addressed from two spatial considerations: a local station effect measuring the effect for properties with in 1/4 mile range and a global station effect measuring the effect of coming 250 m closer to the station. We find that the effect of railway stations on commercial property value mainly takes place at short distances. Commercial properties within 1/4 mile rang are 12.2% more expensive than residential properties. Where the price gap between the railway station zone and the rest is about 4.2% for the average residence, it is about 16.4% for the average commercial property. At longer distances the effect on residential property values dominate. We find that for every 250 m a residence is located closer to a station its price is 2.3% higher than commercial properties. Commuter railway stations have a consistently higher positive impact on the property value compared to light and heavy railway/Metro stations. The inclusion of other accessibility variables (such as highways) in the models reduces the level of reported railway station impact. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
This article reports on the results of an empirical analysis of the effectiveness of a set of collaborative spatial decision support tools developed to support a land use allocation problem in a ...peat-meadow polder in the Netherlands. The tools feature spatial multicriteria analysis as the means to make spatially explicit trade-offs between stakeholder objectives in three different ways: as colors on multiple printed maps, qualitatively on a single digital map and quantitatively on a single digital map. An interactive mapping device is used as the interface between spatial information and participants. A series of controlled experiments was conducted with 30 participants, who were asked to use the tools and perform specific individual and group allocation tasks. Data on the responses of the participants were collected through questionnaires, observer notes, video film and multicriteria scores. The analysis focused on three aspects of effectiveness: usefulness of the tools; clarity of tool information; and impact on decisions. The findings of this analysis are discussed within the context of the information offered by the tools, individual and collaborative work of participants and the spatial and numerical quality of the resulting land use plans. From the experiments, it is clear that the cognitive effort related to the volume and format of information is a critical issue in spatial decision support. This holds true for both the level of detail per item of information and the amount of information to be supplied to the participants. Although the quantitative tool provided the most information, the participants did not consider this tool the most useful and it did not produce the best results.
Bicycle use varies strongly between countries, and even between municipalities within the same country substantial variations may exist. This paper analyses to what extent municipality policies ...matter in explaining these variations. It appears that most of the inter-municipality variation in bicycle use is related to physical aspects such as altitude differences and city size, and features of the population (share of youngsters). Differences in ethnic composition also appear to matter. Important policy-related variables are: the number of stops cyclists have to make on their routes; hindrances in road use; and safety of cyclists. In addition the relative position of bicycles with respect to cars (speed, parking costs) also appears to matter. These results shed light on various components of the cyclists' generalised costs, such as those related to accidents and physical efforts, that are not usually considered. We also conclude that cultural tradition, possibly related to ethnicity deserves a more explicit role in travel surveys and the analysis of travel behaviour than it usually receives.
Automobile gasoline demand can be expressed as a multiplicative function of fuel efficiency, mileage per car and car ownership. This implies a linear relationship between the price elasticity of ...total fuel demand and the price elasticities of fuel efficiency, mileage per car and car ownership. In this meta-analytical study we aim to investigate and explain the variation in empirical estimates of the price elasticity of gasoline demand. A methodological novelty is that we use the linear relationship between the elasticities to develop a meta-analytical estimation approach based on a Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) model with Cross Equation Restrictions. This approach enables us to combine observations of different elasticities and thus increase our sample size. Furthermore, it allows for a more detailed interpretation of our meta-regression results. The empirical results of the study demonstrate that the SUR approach leads to more precise results (i.e., lower standard errors) than a standard meta-analytical approach. We find that, with mean short run and long run price elasticities of −
0.34 and −
0.84, respectively, the demand for gasoline is not very price sensitive. Both in the short and the long run, the impact of a change in the gasoline price on demand is mainly driven by responses in fuel efficiency and mileage per car and to a slightly lesser degree by changes in car ownership. Furthermore, we find that study characteristics relating to the geographic area studied, the year of the study, the type of data used, the time horizon and the functional specification of the demand equation have a significant impact on the estimated value of the price elasticity of gasoline demand.
► We model carrier pricing policy in line with its practice of exploiting passenger heterogeneity by charging multiple fares. ► Posted fares of full-service carriers vary in response to competitor ...type. ► A full-service opponent induces a fall mainly in business fares; a low-cost contender provokes an overall drop of fares.
This paper investigates the price-setting behavior of full-service airlines in the European passenger aviation market. We develop a model of airline competition, which accommodates various market structures, some of which include low-cost players. Using data on published airfares of Lufthansa, British Airways, Alitalia and KLM for the main city-pairs from Italy to the rest of Europe, our empirical findings substantially confirm the propositions of the theoretical model. We find that competition among full-service carriers appears to affect the price levels of the business and the leisure segments asymmetrically: there are small reductions in the leisure segments and significant reductions in the business segment of the aviation market. In contrast, competition with low-cost carriers reduces both the business and leisure fares of full-service carriers quite uniformly, with an emphasis on the mid-segment fares.
One of the main outcomes of open skies policies is the importance of service frequency in the competition between airlines. To keep load factors high while offering high frequency service, airlines ...tend to reduce the size of the aircraft used. On short-haul routes this phenomenon is even more apparent, especially on routes between hub airports, even though these routes and airports are often congested. This choice of service frequency and aircraft size must have important environmental consequences that this paper aims to evaluate and quantify. The analysis considers local air pollution, climate change and noise impacts and aims to evaluate whether the competitive environment that drives airlines to offer high frequency service carries an environmental penalty. The analysis showed that increasing aircraft size and adjusting the service frequency to offer similar seating capacity will increase local pollution but decrease climate change impact and noise pollution. When local pollution and climate change impacts are monetized and aggregated the analysis showed that environmental benefits will result from increasing aircraft size. But these benefits, in monetary terms, were found to be relatively small and sensitive to the assumptions made.
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