Toward a solar city: Trade-offs between on-site solar energy potential and vehicle energy consumption in San Francisco,California

This study demonstrates the trade-offs between vehicle energy consumption and on-site solar energy potential in a city landscape. While higher urban density may curb many of the problems associated with sprawl mainly by reducing vehicle travels and associated energy use, it can also limit on-site rooftop solar energy utilization due to more shade on rooftops in dense urban settings and less available rooftop area per person. Using travel survey, Geographic Information System (GIS) and Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data, we estimated vehicle energy use and rooftop solar potential in the City of San Francisco as a case study and calculated possible offsetting effects between vehicle energy consumption and rooftop solar potential. Given the prevalence of gasoline-based vehicles and today's solar photovoltaic (PV) panel efficiency, vehicle energy use per capita appears to exceed energy generated by rooftop solar PVs per capita across all density ranges, especially in lower density environments. At the point when electric cars and advanced, highly efficient solar PV panels penetrate the market, the results change based on the combination of different technological options. A significant reduction of energy consumption can be achieved through the immediate and rapid spread of energy efficient technologies in vehicles and solar PVs along with the long-term effect from gradual urban densification.     

Identifying latent demand for transit-oriented development neighbourhoods: Evidence from a mid-sized urban area in Canada

Many studies have provided strong evidence of residents' support for the characteristics of transit-oriented development (TOD) neighbourhoods, but few have explicitly investigated the question of whether these preferences translate into their actual choices. How many households are experiencing a state of residential mismatch between preferred and actual neighbourhoods? What trade-offs have they made in residential location choices? We draw on data from a 2017 residential location choice survey in Kitchener Waterloo (KW), Canada, and employ latent class analysis (LCA) to address these questions. The light-rail transit (LRT) corridor encompassing the area that is 800 m surrounding LRT stops is defined as the TOD area. This study finds empirical evidence of TOD preferences in mid-sized cities and further uncovers latent demand for TOD neighbourhoods during the LRT construction phase. 37% of respondents hold strong TOD preferences but purchased outside TOD areas. These households are primarily young families (aged 25–34) with children and represent a possible missing target in TOD housing supply in our study area. Our findings provide support for building more “missing middle” intensified family housing in TOD areas of mid-sized cities.     

Effects of parking and cordon charge policies on tourist's modal shift in central business district of Mashhad city,Iran

The second largest holy city of the world, Mashhad, attracts high volumes of tourists and pilgrims every year. Most visitors travel by private car and are a source of considerable funds for the local economy. Among road users, tourists as one of the major traveller categories in Mashhad city behave differently due to the particular trip purpose. The aim of this research is to model tourist's shifting modes of travel behaviour when policy measures, such as the parking and cordon fares, are implemented. The tourists’ preferences were examined using binary logit analysis when different options of travel cost and time scenarios were provided. Results indicate that travel time, parking cost, cordon cost, education level and vehicle price influence tourist's modal choice. In addition, the finding shows that congestion pricing will be more effective than a parking pricing strategy in encouraging switching of modes.     

Socioeconomic differences in public acceptability and car use adaptation towards urban road pricing

Urban road pricing is regarded as an effective instrument to reduce traffic congestion and environmental-related problems in metropolitan areas. Whereas the overall impact of urban road pricing on car use adaptation and public acceptability is known, there are only inconsistent results concerning the socioeconomic differences in the response towards road pricing. However, this knowledge is necessary for the development of urban road pricing packages. This paper uses a segmentation approach to identify groups of car users with a similar background in relevant socioeconomic variables and compares their responses towards road pricing. Three groups are identified: young families, suburban families, and singles and couples. These groups indeed differ in their car use adaptation towards urban road pricing as well as in their preferred revenues use. While all three groups significantly reduced their private car use, the young families reduced their car use most, followed by the group of singles and couples. Complementary measures are discussed that are believed to facilitate car use adaptation of each group in response towards urban road pricing.     

Examining individuals preferences for hybrid electric and alternatively fuelled vehicles

This paper examines individuals motivations when purchasing vehicles, focusing upon what factors would encourage individuals to purchase hybrid electrical vehicle (HEV) or alternatively fuelled vehicle (AFV). AFVs in this paper refer to any cars run on alternatives to petrol and diesel. This research attempts to ascertain whether reductions in fuel costs, vehicle registration tax (VRT), or green house gas emissions would encourage individuals to purchase a HEV or an AFV instead of a conventional vehicle. VRT is an Irish tax that is levied on the purchase of new vehicles. One of the motivations to conduct this research was to examine a new car tax and VRT scheme introduced by the Irish government in 2008. This new policy rewards the purchase of environmentally friendly cars, with lower VRT and car tax rates. To understand individuals’ perceptions of these new taxes a survey was sent to recent customers of a car company in Ireland. The survey asked respondents about their recently purchased vehicle and how important they considered vehicle attributes such as environmental performance, fuel cost, and safety, before making their car purchase. The survey also contained a number of stated preference experiments that were designed to ascertain what factors influence individuals’ decisions when purchasing their new car. The results showed that respondents did not rate green house gas emissions or VRT as crucial attributes when purchasing a new vehicle. The vehicle attributes that respondents rated most highly were reliability, automobile safety, fuel costs, and the cost price. The majority of respondents agreed that HEVs and AFVs are better for the environment, cheaper to run than conventional vehicles and would be the vehicle of choice in ten years time.     

Equity in job accessibility and environmental quality in a segmented housing market: The case of Greater London

Job accessibility and environmental quality are rarely equally distributed in spatial and/or social dimensions within metropolitan regions. Availability of these affects the quality of residential locations, and can be expected to be capitalised into house prices. For prospective house owners, their options will be limited to sub housing markets within certain price bands depending on their available housing budgets. Availability and marginal prices of job accessibility and environmental quality, as well as trade-offs between them, might be different between these submarkets. Using Greater London as the case metropolitan region, this study explored such differences, to shed light on the role of housing market in equity and/or inequity in job accessibility, environmental quality and their interactions. Results of this study show that lower-price submarkets have advantages in job accessibility in terms of marginal price, but are disadvantaged in terms of availability. Differences are more mixed in marginal price and availability between the submarkets for environmental quality. When balancing job accessibility and environmental quality within constrained housing budgets, households in lower-price submarkets would find it relatively easier to gain job accessibility with less sacrifice on environmental quality as compared to those searching in higher-price submarkets, but hard to reach the higher levels of job accessibility that are mainly reserved for the higher-price submarkets.     

Public bike system pricing and usage in Taipei

Although widely implemented, public bike systems (PBSs) are facing a conflict between system usage and sustainable financing. The relationships between PBS pricing and usage must be clarified to formulate solutions for the conflict. This research used the Taipei PBS, YouBike, as a case study. A stated preference survey was conducted on metro passengers, and a binary logit model was applied to analyze the pricing effects of PBS on passengers’ choice of using PBS as their transfer mode. A latent class model was also used to identify segment-specific preferences. The empirical data show that whether commuters used PBS as a transfer mode was highly dependent on the basic fee and basic period, but not on the variable fee after the basic period; the basic fee mattered to a commuter's choice more than the basic period; irregular PBS users were more sensitive to the basic fee than regular PBS users; and regular PBS users were more sensitive to the basic period than irregular PBS users. The current results broaden the understanding of how PBS pricing affects its usage and illustrate a pricing policy analysis for YouBike that considers sustainable financing and system usage.     

A fuel surcharge policy for reducing road traffic greenhouse gas emissions

This paper proposes a car pricing policy based on fuel surcharges in substitution of car ownership taxes for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by cars. The aim of the proposed policy is to change some (fixed) costs of car use that are not perceived at each trip into (variable) costs. The amount of fuel surcharges and the effects of their application on fuel consumption and on GHG emissions are estimated by a model that is able to relate gasoline and diesel consumption with fuel prices. The effects of the proposed policy on fuel consumption and on GHG emissions are estimated for Italy. The results show that car users prefer to shift towards more efficient fuel vehicles than to public transport, producing a significant, but less than expected, reduction of GHG emissions.     

Congestion pricing scenarios and change of job or residential location: Results of a stated adaptation experiment

This paper reports the findings of a stated adaptation experiment which was conducted to assess possible long-term impacts of congestion pricing scenarios, especially a change of job location and/or residential location. The stated adaptation experiment was administered through the Internet and involved 395 respondents. The findings of this study indicate that most individuals and households will first adjust characteristics of their daily activity–travel behavior. Changes of job location and/or residential location are significantly less often considered as a response to congestion pricing. Some sociodemographics significantly influence such long-term adaptations. There is also evidence of spatial effects, albeit not significant.     

The role of perceived acceptability of alternatives in identifying and assessing choice set processing strategies in stated choice settings: The case of road pricing reform

In designing choice experiments, it is common to present a number of alternatives to a respondent and have them choose the most preferred alternative. However, respondents may ignore one or more alternatives which they deem unacceptable for various reasons. This possibility aligns with the idea of the ‘consideration set’ which influences the choice of an alternative given the choice set of interest. This paper uses an endogenous choice set model to investigate the influence that contextual effects and socioeconomic characteristics play in explaining variations in the choice sets considered by respondents when they reveal their preferences.     

Impact of transport pricing on quality of life, acceptability, and intentions to reduce car use: An exploratory study in five European countries

This paper examines how a transport pricing policy aimed to reduce car use may affect individuals’ Quality of Life (QoL), to what extent this policy is acceptable to the public and if people intend to change car use when the policy is implemented. Also, comparisons were made amongst five countries (Austria, Czech Republic, Italy, The Netherlands and Sweden). An internet survey among 490 respondents showed that a stringent measure, i.e., doubling costs of car use, hardly affects people’s general QoL. Respondents are unsure whether they would accept the policy and whether they intend to change their car use if the policy is implemented. Respondents from The Netherlands and Sweden are more pessimistic about the QoL consequences of the policy, think the policy is less acceptable and are less inclined to reduce car use than respondents from the Czech Republic, Italy and, to a lesser degree, Austria. Implications and recommendations for developing, adjusting or supplementing QoL measurement instruments and policies are discussed to ensure effective and efficient policy making.     

Accessibility and proximity effects of bus rapid transit on housing prices: Heterogeneity across price quantiles and space

Bus rapid transit (BRT) systems have mushroomed worldwide in the last few decades. An enriched understanding of BRT capitalization effects is essential. Although the BRT accessibility effect on housing prices has been extensively explored, the effect of proximity to the BRT corridor (which may be related to unattractive landscape and noise pollution) has been little scrutinized. More importantly, whether and how the two effects vary across price levels and space have yet to be sufficiently studied. To this end, we estimate the effect of BRT accessibility and proximity on housing prices by applying a battery of econometric methods (including hedonic pricing models, spatial regression models, quantile regression models, and a geographically weighted regression model) to 5185 observations in the housing market in Xiamen Island, China. The results of this study are: (1) BRT accessibility premiums and proximity penalties simultaneously exist in the housing market; (2) buyers of high-priced housing have a greater willingness to pay for avoiding the nuisances attributed to proximity to the BRT corridor; (3) the effect of BRT on housing prices is spatially heterogeneous; (4) the BRT accessibility effect is larger in suburban areas than in urban areas; and (5) housing prices are more predictable near the city centers than outside the area, which may be because a greater proportion of the price of a house near the city centers is derived from the location (rather than the building structure). Finally, policy implications (e.g., building acoustic barriers and planting vegetation along the BRT corridor and improving the transit service in suburban areas) are discussed.     

Are batteries ready for plug-in hybrid buyers?

The notion persists that battery technology and cost remain as barriers to commercialization of electric-drive passenger vehicles. Within the context of starting a market for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), we explore two aspects of the purported problem: (1) PHEV performance goals and (2) the abilities of present and near-term battery chemistries to meet the resulting technological requirements. We summarize evidence stating that battery technologies do not meet the requirements that flow from three sets of influential PHEV goals due to inherent trade-offs among power, energy, longevity, cost, and safety. However, we also show that part of this battery problem is that those influential goals are overly ambitious compared to goals derived from consumers’ PHEV designs. We elicited PHEV designs from potential early buyers among U.S. new car buyers; most of those who are interested in a PHEV are interested in less technologically advanced PHEVs than assumed by experts. Using respondents’ PHEV designs, we derive peak power density and energy density requirements and show that current battery chemistries can meet them. By assuming too aggressive PHEV goals, existing policy initiatives, battery research, and vehicle development programs mischaracterize the batteries needed to start commercializing PHEVs. To answer the question whether batteries are ready for PHEVs, we must first answer the question, “whose PHEVs?”     

“Waiting on the train”: The anticipatory (causal) effects of Crossrail in Ealing

This paper estimates the willingness-to-pay for anticipated journey-time savings introduced by the Crossrail intervention in the London Borough of Ealing. Given Crossrail remains under construction, we estimate how the anticipated benefit of Crossrail's announcement enters the house price determination process. Anticipated journey-time savings should enter the home-buyer's pricing equation because these benefits are speculatively internalised even before the service becomes operational. Using a experimental method that accounts for the possibility of a spatial autoregressive process in housing values, we test the hypotheses that the announcement of a new commuter rail service generated a location premium, and that house price appreciation reflected proximity to Crossrail terminals. Our evidence suggests home-buyers significantly valued proximity to planned Crossrail terminals following the post-announcement period.     

Commute travel and its effect on housing tenure choice of males and females living in the urban and rural areas of Bangalore city in India

This study attempts to identify various factors influencing individual’s choice of housing tenure with emphasis on the effect of commute trips on that choice. It also focuses on the sensitivity to various factors affecting the housing tenure choice between males and females of urban and rural areas. The study is based on both exploratory analysis and estimation of statistical models using a Household Travel Survey data collected for Bangalore Metropolitan Region in year 2010. The results indicate the role of both the land use attributes and commute travel characteristics on tenure choice and the behavioural difference between males and females. The sensitivity to various attributes is also observed to be varying between the individuals living in the urban and rural areas of the city. The finding that private mode use for commuting governs the housing tenure choice of individuals suggests that promotion of urban-transport policies such as Transit Oriented Development may be an effective strategy to curb the issues related to energy consumption and emission.     

Dynamic pricing of ancillary services based on passenger choice behavior

Based on passenger choice behavior, a dynamic pricing mechanism of ancillary services has been brought up for analysis in this paper. With the analysis of the passenger choice behavior of ancillary services, this study (1) analyzed the pricing of ancillary services from airlines' websites, (2) launched a survey to investigate passengers’ characteristics and preferences, (3) applied the binary logistic model to analyze passenger choice of ancillary services, and integrated into the dynamic pricing model of ancillary services. The optimal prices can be obtained at the maximum of the revenue. Based on the historical data of a Chinese domestic flight, the optimal prices of ancillary services for different types of passengers can be obtained at the maximum revenue of ancillary services, with a 74.4% increase of revenue. This paper not only created a general pricing model for improving the ancillary revenue but also provided theoretical support for ancillary pricing. The model with enough data can be dynamically applied to various flights and ancillary services.     

高速铁路能源消耗影响因素的探讨

我国高速铁路快速发展．高速铁路上运行的动车组如何实现节能降耗是铁路行业关注的热点和焦点问题。以上海铁路局高速铁路能源消耗情况为切入点,分析动车组能源消耗影响因素,并结合铁路实际,提出高速铁路动车组节能降耗的建议措施。     

The first rapid tram line in Poland: How has it affected travel behaviours,housing choices and satisfaction,and apartment prices?

The opening of the Poznań Rapid Tram (pol. Poznański Szybki Tramwaj, PST) in the year 1997 symbolically marked the beginning of a new era in the development of urban transportation systems in Poland. In this paper we would like to address the following question: more than one decade after the opening of the PST, what are its effects in terms of travel behaviours, housing choices and satisfaction, and apartment prices? In order to answer this question, we combined data on travel behaviours and housing choices from a survey based on a sample of nearly 300 households with data on housing prices from over 1400 real estate transaction records from the period between 2010 and 2013. Our results show that the proximity to PST affects travel behaviours, as respondents living close to PST stops confirmed that they use this form of transportation more often. There also seems to be some effect on housing choices; in locations close to PST stops we found many households living in rental housing, particularly university students. Also, about 20% of interviewees declared that they would pay more for apartments located closer to the rapid tram. However, that effect was only partly confirmed through the analysis of transaction prices. Using standard and spatial econometric regressions including variables like apartment size, floor number, amenities, and type of building we found a weak correlation between the proximity to PST and apartment prices. In conclusion, we argue that treating property price effects as the main justification for public transportation projects might be a doubtful choice, because in some cases the principal impacts of such projects might be visible in terms of residents' satisfaction and travel behaviours.     

A spatial portfolio theory of household location choice

Classical residential location choice models were constructed as uncertainty-free. Using the expected utility theorem, urban researchers have dealt with different types of uncertainties, such as uncertain income, uncertain housing price and uncertain transportation cost, etc. This paper, however, considers uncertain traveling frequencies in two-workplace setting, a novel theory on the emergence of a new centre between two existing CBDs can then be formulated. It can be regarded as a spatial portfolio theory as the theory predicts that household location choice would strike a balance between commuting cost savings (return) and variance of the savings (risk). Empirical evidence on the housing transaction price gradient changes in Hong Kong supports the theory.     

UK road freight energy use by product: trends and analysis from 1985 to 1995

Since the early 1980s, energy use in road freight has been rising much faster than overall energy use in the UK. To better understand the factors driving this rapid growth, we carried out an analysis of road freight energy use trends across 14 product sectors from 1985 to 1995. Growth in length and complexity of supply chains, rather than growth of output, is shown to be the main driver of increasing freight energy consumption, with high value products having the highest energy use per tonne lifted. Policy options and a proposal for improved estimation of energy consumption are also discussed.