Using accessibility indicators and GIS to assess spatial spillovers of transport infrastructure investment

This paper proposes a methodology to measure spatial spillovers of transport infrastructure investment and to monetize them by distributing the costs of the infrastructures envisaged according to the regional distribution of the potential accessibility benefits. We use a transport master plan (the Spanish “Plan Estratégico de Infraestructuras y Transporte” 2005–2020, PEIT) as a case study for applying our methodology. In order to calculate and map regional spillovers, economic potential values are computed using network routines in a Geographic Information System (GIS) by comparing two scenarios: firstly, the scenario PEIT 2020; and secondly the scenario which includes the improvements envisaged for the year 2020 in all the regions except the region whose spillover effects are being analyzed. The differences between these two scenarios represent the potential spatial spillover effects of this region on the rest of the regions. This procedure is repeated for each of the Spanish regions in order to calculate a matrix of inter-regional spillovers in economic potential units. In a second step, this matrix is monetized by distributing the costs of the investment in infrastructures envisaged in the region according to the regional distribution of the economic potential benefits. This inter-regional matrix of investments flows characterizes the “inner”, “export”, and “import” values of each of the regional road investments. Subtracting from the direct investment the exports to other regions and adding the imports from other regions, an estimation of the real investment of the plan in each region taking into account all the spillover effects is obtained. This value can be compared with the direct investment in the region, analyzing whether one region has more or less direct investment than real. The proposed methodology makes it transparent which regions benefit more from national transport investment irrespective of where the investment occurs. The spillover matrix can be a valid instrument, especially in federal states or in the case of transnational projects, in the field of regional economics because it offers very useful information for both planners and policy makers.     

Visualizing sea level rise impacts to transportation infrastructure using virtual reality

Local government officials, including transportation planners, usually rely on two dimensional (2D) visualizations, including charts and maps, to convey future scenarios of sea level rise (SLR) to the public in coastal communities. Recent visualization applications allow for the use of immersive environments, such as virtual reality (VR) into the planning process. A comparison of the before and aftereffects of this quasi-experiment showed the power of VR as a tool to engage with the public in community planning. VR significantly increased participant comprehension to 2D maps and 80.3% of participants reported that the experience motivated them to become more engaged on the topic of SLR. The study also found evidence that the VR experience suppressed political bias for a segment of the population with respect to opinions on the severity of the threat of SLR.     

拓展运输市场需求提高高铁经济效益

针对高速铁路运营模式特点,分析高铁开办快递业务的必要性,探讨如何拓展消费市场,延伸需求服务,建议以快递运输市场为高铁新的经济增长点,采取简单易行的高铁混运兼容模式运行,以促进高铁经济效益的提高。     

A comparison of three methods for assessing the walkability of the pedestrian environment

This paper presents the results of a research project conducted in the UK designed to increase understanding of the factors which influence levels of walking and pedestrian route choice. It describes a number of techniques that were used to assess the pedestrian environment from a pedestrian’s perspective. These techniques included a computer based tool developed using stated preference surveys to determine the relative values of a range of factors in the pedestrian environment; an on-street survey that was designed to investigate values and attitudes towards different attributes of the pedestrian environment along a route; and finally an ‘on the move survey’ where pedestrian volunteers were interviewed while walking along the route in order to get an actual account of their experiences as they walk. A case study is then used to show the benefits and disadvantages of using these different techniques and compares results for a pedestrian route in the City of Leeds in the UK. The results indicate that there were a number of pedestrian attributes considered important by pedestrians when walking including pavement cleanliness, safe crossing places, good connectivity and sense of security. The three approaches complement one another and have highlighted in different ways that the walking experience is affected by the cumulative impact of multiple interactions (both positive and negative) as people walk in the pedestrian environment.     

Transport infrastructure investment,accessibility change and firm productivity: Evidence from the Seoul region

This study explores how and to what extent transport infrastructure investment affects the level of agglomeration and consequently impacts on firm productivity, using transport network data and micro-data for manufacturing firms in the Seoul region. A first-difference model with novel instrument variables is developed to obtain more precise results than those in previous studies, and the partial arbitrariness that exists in previous studies is reduced by using the estimated spatial-decay parameter. An accessibility indicator derived from a multi-modal travel model is also applied to increase the accuracy in the measurement of agglomeration. It is found that an increase in the degree to which transport infrastructure investment improves the level of agglomeration raises firm productivity, with a best estimated elasticity of 0.0452. The finding highlights the key role of transport infrastructure investment in strengthening the level of agglomeration and the resulting economic advantages for production and economic actors. It is suggested that a policy for transport projects be implemented to maximise their cost effectiveness and ensure that agglomeration is promoted in the area where they are developed.     

Demystifying Chinese overseas investment in infrastructure: Port development,the Belt and Road Initiative and regional development

China's outward investment has increased tremendously in recent years and it is currently a global leader in the construction of transportation infrastructure. While its signature ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ (BRI) is often portrayed as a threat by policy makers and media in the West, this article approaches the BRI from the perspective of Beijing. We review Chinese infrastructure investment and show that rather than a monolithic strategy aimed at world domination, the BRI is driven by a range of Chinese stakeholders situated at different scales whose motives vary from achieving strategic geopolitical advantage to profit-maximization. We focus on port investments to demonstrate that the BRI accelerated an ongoing trend of increasing Chinese investment in overseas ports that began in the early 2000s. We subsequently present mini-case studies of port projects Gwadar, Pakistan and Kuantan, Malaysia, which illustrate that large Central Government state-owned enterprises (SOEs) pursue strategic objectives while SOEs situated at the province and city levels are motivated by economic incentives. All Chinese investors embrace the ‘port-park-city’ model pioneered by Shenzhen, and we highlight its potential to foster regional development. We conclude that future research on Chinese infrastructure projects should be relational, multi-scalar and multi-sited.     

Examining the influence of stop level infrastructure and built environment on bus ridership in Montreal

We studied transit ridership from the perspective of the transit provider, with the objective of quantifying the influence of transit system operational attributes, transportation system infrastructure attributes and built environment attributes on the disaggregate stop level boardings and alightings by time of day for the bus transit system in the Montreal region. A Composite Marginal Likelihood (CML) based ordered response probit (ORP) model, that simultaneously allows us to incorporate the influence of exogenous variables and potential correlations between boardings and alightings across multiple time periods of the day is employed. Our results indicate that headway affects ridership negatively, while the presence of public transportation around the stop has a positive and significant effect. Moreover, parks, commercial enterprises, and residential area, amongst others, have various effects across the day on boardings and alightings at bus stops. An elasticity analysis provides useful insights. Specifically, we observe that the most effective way to increase ridership is to increase public transport service and accessibility, whereas enhancements to land use have a smaller effect on ridership. The framework from our analysis provides transit agencies a mechanism to study the influence of transit accessibility, transit connectivity, transit schedule alterations (to increase/reduce headway), and land-use pattern changes on ridership.     

完善铁路工程造价标准体系夯实铁路建设投资控制基础

回顾铁路工程造价标准体系形成过程,阐述按照"建设前期、工程交易期、工程实施期"三阶段实现铁路工程全过程造价管理的主要内容,分析"编制办法开放稳定,工程定额动态管理,价格信息及时发布,前期后期有机衔接"是完善铁路工程造价标准体系的关键,为实现铁路建设投资有效控制打好基础.     

Predictive spatial network analysis for high-resolution transport modeling,applied to cyclist flows,mode choice,and targeting investment

Betweenness is a measure long used in spatial network analysis (SpNA) to predict flows of pedestrians and vehicles, and more recently in public health research. We improve on this approach with a methodology for combining multiple betweenness computations using cross-validated ridge regression to create wide-scale, high-resolution transport models. This enables computationally efficient calibration of distance decay, agglomeration effects, and multiple trip purposes. Together with minimization of the Geoffrey E. Havers (GEH) statistic commonly used to evaluate transport models, this bridges a gap between SpNA and mainstream transport modeling practice. The methodology is demonstrated using models of bicycle transport, where the higher resolution of the SpNA models compared to mainstream (four-step) models is of particular use. Additional models are developed incorporating heterogeneous user preferences (cyclist aversion to motor traffic). Based on network shape and flow data alone the best model gives reasonable correlation against cyclist flows on individual links, weighted to optimize GEH (r² = 0.78, GEH = 1.9). As SpNA models use a single step rather than four, and can be based on flow data alone rather than demographics and surveys, the cost of calibration is lower, ensuring suitability for small-scale infrastructure projects as well as large-scale studies.     

Applying the new appraisal approach to transport policy at the local level in the UK

In 1998 the UK government introduced a new, integrated transport policy signalling a move away from the principles of ‘predict and provide’ towards those of ‘new realism’. As part of this policy shift, transport strategies are now to be assessed under the New Approach to Appraisal (NATA) which is designed to promote sustainability and provide a sterner test for new road proposals. Despite this, it is already evident that the construction of new roads has remained a cornerstone of the government’s new transport strategy––albeit alongside considerable investment in public transport––which has been described as pragmatic multimodalism. This paper examines how the new appraisal approach has been applied at the local level in the formulation of the first Local Transport Strategy (LTS) for Aberdeen in north east Scotland and questions the effectiveness of NATA (and its Scottish equivalent, the New Appraisal Methodology, or NAM), as currently formulated, at promoting the delivery of genuinely integrated and sustainable local transport strategies. The analysis of Aberdeen’s LTS is used to inform a discussion about the possible implications for future local transport policies across the UK.     

Predicting tourists' behavioural intentions at the destination level

Using structural equation modelling, the formative model was tested on a sample of 703 tourists who visited six coastal destinations in Montenegro. It relies on the complex relationships between five constructs – perceived quality of a destination's offerings, tourist satisfaction, perceived equity, perceived benefits and behavioural intentions – simultaneously incorporating the emotional and rational self-regulatory mechanisms. The empirical results supported the hypothesised relationships. The group of eight tourist destination attributes affects perceived quality of a destination's offerings that positively and directly relate to perceived benefits, behavioural intentions and tourist satisfaction, whereas satisfaction is also determined by equity perceptions. Additionally, perceived quality of a destination's offerings also relates indirectly to tourist behavioural intentions, through perceived benefits and tourist satisfaction, while satisfaction also mediates the interaction between perceived equity and tourist intended behaviour. These research results contribute to a deeper understanding of which behavioural processes, and with what strength, lead to the increase in tourist loyalty at the destination level, and ultimately provide better insights into the predictors of behavioural intentions.     

铁路适应运输需求发展的比较优势分析

未来,随着工业化、城市化进程的加快推进,我国客货运输需求在总量增长和结构上均呈现出新的阶段性特征。近年来,随着铁路市场化改革、运输技术进步和运输组织创新,铁路在适应运输需求发展上表现出越来越灵活的适应性和越来越强的竞争力。在新的发展形势下,有理由相信,铁路运输不但会强化其固有的技术经济优势,而且会表现出在客货运输需求发展变化上的适应性优势,从而在整个交通运输行业乃至国民经济的发展中发挥更加重要的作用。     

A matheuristic approach to the air-cargo recovery problem under demand disruption

Air cargo transport is subject to unpredictable changes in expected demand, necessitating adjustments to itinerary planning to recover from such disruptions. We study a flight rescheduling problem to react to cargo demand disruptions in the short run. To increase flexibility, we consider two different cargo assignment policies. We propose a matheuristic approach to solve the problem that provides high-quality solutions in a short computational time, based on column generation in which each subproblem is solved using an ad-hoc heuristic. The approach is tested on demand disruption instances containing up to 75 air cargo orders with different penalty levels. The results show that the proposed method improves profit by 54% over the solution generated by a commercial MIP solver within a 1-h time limit, and by 15% over the solution with the routes fixed as in the original flight planning that only allows cargo to be re-routed. We also show that there exist incremental benefits in the range of 3–5% by allowing cargo for a given order to be transported by various aircraft.     

Sea-level rise impacts on transport infrastructure: The notorious case of the coastal railway line at Dawlish,England

Future climate change is likely to increase the frequency of coastal storms and floods, with major consequences for coastal transport infrastructure. This paper assesses the extent to which projected sea-level rise is likely to impact upon the functioning of the Dawlish to Teignmouth stretch of the London to Penzance railway line, in England. Using a semi-empirical modelling approach, we identify a relationship between sea-level change and rail incidents over the last 150 years and then use model-based sea-level predictions to extrapolate this relationship into the future. We find that days with line restrictions (DLRs) look set to increase by up to 1170%, to as many as 84–120 per year, by 2100 in a high sea-level rise scenario (0.55–0.81 m). Increased costs to the railway industry deriving from maintenance and line restrictions will be small (£ millions) in comparison with damage caused by individual extreme events (£10s of millions), while the costs of diversion of the railway are higher still (£100s of millions to billions). Socio-economic costs to the region are likely to be significant although they are more difficult to estimate accurately. Finally, we explain how our methodology is applicable to vulnerable coastal transport infrastructure worldwide.     

The demand for reliable transit service: New evidence using stop level data from the Los Angeles Metro bus system

This study explores the role of service reliability in determining bus transit ridership. Using stop level service supply, demand, and performance data from the Los Angeles Metro bus system, I investigate whether reliability of a directional line serving a stop influences the number of passengers boarding the line at that stop, controlling for various other established factors affecting demand. This cross-sectional analysis of the variation in line boardings across about 1300 sample schedule time point bus stops served by about 300 directional bus lines over a six-month period uses a historical archive of real-time geo-referenced vehicle location data, and focuses on five different time periods, peaks and off-peaks, of a typical weekday. By evaluating two measures that capture different dimensions of bus service reliability, and by estimating a series of regression models, I find systematic evidence that higher average service punctuality (or schedule adherence) and lower variation in schedule deviation over time are associated with greater ridership, all else equal, particularly during the peak periods. This study also provides first empirical evidence that the effect of reliability on peak-period ridership is moderated by headway. The demand for reliability seems to be higher for lines with relatively longer headways. The findings indicate that service reliability influences transit mode choice and/or line/route selection, and suggest that system-wide ridership gains can be expected from reliability improvements. From an urban planning perspective, this study provides more evidence that good service quality can effectively compliment transformations in the urban fabric brought about by coordinated land use — transit plans to promote transit use.     

Analytic hierarchy process approach for identifying relative importance of factors to improve passenger security checks at airports

Many failures concerned with detecting prohibited items from air passenger or carry on luggage have been reported from time to time even in advanced countries. The objective of this research is to study the relative importance of the means to improve passenger security checks at the airport. The authors recognize that there are three major factors affecting the effectiveness of passenger screening: human resources, equipment and facilities, and procedures and responsibility structures. The study utilized an AHP analysis on surveyed data about the relative importance of the factors and elements concerned with the improvement of passenger screening. The result of the analytic hierarchy process analysis showed that the most important factor that would need improvement to raise the performance of passenger screening would be human resources. This result is compatible with the globally accepted assertion held by others in the aviation world.     

Proactive vehicle routing with inferred demand to solve the bikesharing rebalancing problem

Bikesharing suffers from the effects of fluctuating demand that leads to system inefficiencies. We propose a framework to solve the dynamic bikesharing repositioning problem based on four core models: a demand forecasting model, a station inventory model, a redistribution needs model, and a vehicle-routing model. The approach is proactive instead of reactive, as bike repositioning occurs before inefficiencies are observed. The framework is tested using data from the Hubway Bikesharing system. Simulation results indicate that system performance improvements of 7% are achieved reducing the number of empty and full events by 57% and 76%, respectively, during PM peaks.     

Monte Carlo comes to Rome: a note on the estimation of unconstrained runway capacity at Rome Fiumucino International Airport

A new airport capacity concept has been advanced by the International Air Transport Association (IATA). Unconstrained capacity represents the airport capacity with reservoirs of traffic always available and the use of all planned technological and air traffic managerial improvements. To establish its utility and estimate its value for the first time, the case of Rome Fiumucino International Airport is examined.     

Network industries in collision: aviation infrastructure capacity,financing and the exposure to traffic declines

This paper discusses how various aviation infrastructure service providers have dealt with the fall off in airline traffic following the terrorist attacks in the US on September 11th. It shows that these organizations have relatively high fixed costs and low incremental costs for providing services. As such, small changes in traffic have large impacts on revenue because revenues are generally proportional to activity. However, because of the high component of common and fixed costs, airport and ATS provider costs do not change in proportion to activity. When traffic declines, revenue shortfalls can arise because most airport and ATC systems operate on a simple cost recovery basis. The responses to the events of September 11th have also caused substantial increases in security costs. To the extent these costs are passed forward to system users, they will increase the price of travel and impact patronage further. Airlines also have substantial fixed capacity costs. The declines in traffic are often felt as an erosion of yields and fares as carriers seek to maintain traffic loads for the capacity they are going to operate. In general, the ability to pass along cost increases from providers to airlines or from airlines to passengers depends on relative supply and demand elasticities. Because infrastructure provision is often a monopoly, and the demand for airline services is price elastic, we suggest that most of the cost increases will be borne by the airlines. We also suggest that short-haul flights will be most severely impacted because the fees and taxes are a larger proportion of the fare for these flights. We also examine the extent to which additional infrastructure costs imposed on operators may exacerbate the downturn in their traffic.