The unpredicted rise of motorcycles: A cost benefit analysis

This article examines the consequences, for Paris, of the increase in two-wheel motor vehicle (2WMV) traffic (measured in vehicle/km). Our study reveals that, between 2000 and 2007, the subway's (Métro) share in total inner-Paris travel increased by 13.6%, the RER's share by 10.3% and the SNCF's share by 20.5%. These three means of transport account for 58% of daily travel. On the other hand, the bus share has decreased by 16% and that of cars by 23.7%. Private motor vehicles represent 37.3% of total travel. Looking at road traffic, where public transport (buses) and private motor transport compete for the use of limited road space, private motor vehicles account for 91.5% and public transport 8.5% of total travel.The 2WMV share in Paris traffic increased by 36% between 2000 and 2007, with 2WMVs now accounting for a share twice as large as that of buses. A survey has shown that 100 million additional passenger kilometres were made by 2WMV in 2007 compared to 2000. 53% of this increase comes from people shifting to 2WMV from public transport and 26.5% from private cars. The remaining 20% is attributable to the increased use of 2WMVs by those already owning such vehicles in 2000.Is the growth in the share of 2WMV traffic in Paris beneficial to the community? This shift in the means of transport generates time savings of €293 million and increases owners' vehicle usage costs by €49 million. The cost of accidents is increased by €49 million and the negative consequences in terms of pollution are estimated at €22.6 million. The welfare impact of the government revenue change is negative and equal to €4.7 million. In total, the gain for the community is therefore around €168 million. Accident costs are the key issue. The fact that there are on average 21 2WMV fatalities in Paris (average 2006–2007) for a means of transport accounting for 16% of passenger/km made every day in Paris offers a striking contrast to the 6 (average 2006–2007) fatalities concerning cyclists which account for a mere 0.1% of trips. The massive shift to 2WMV has taken place without any public policy support. Public policy could easily further improve the 2WMV cost-benefit balance by taking measures that would decrease the number of accidents.     

Hinterland transportation in Europe: Combined transport versus road transport

The dominance of road for hinterland services could be challenged by using rail-road or waterway-road transport because of costs, congestion and growing environmental constraints. A common dynamic that is very favorable to the development of combined transport is shared among the actors of the transport chain but with different starting positions considering the ports of the Northern Range.But combined transport must still demonstrate that it can compete with road transport. Road transport and combined transport are not directly comparable because they do not offer the same physical transport service. The organizational patterns of road and combined transport are investigated. The example of hinterland services to and from the port of Le Havre to the Paris region is a particularly interesting case because of the very short distance. It is shown that the competitiveness of combined transport in terms of price varies greatly according to the way road transport it competes with is organized and that the commercial policy of combined transport operators plays a key role for explaining this competitiveness. Additional services such as additional dwelling times and specific custom advantages are paramount of importance to encourage the shift from road transport to combined transport.     

A time-period choice model for road freight transport in Flanders based on stated preference data

This paper presents one of the first models explaining the choice of time-period in road freight transport. Policies that would shift some fraction of the trucks from peak to earlier and later periods will contribute to the reduction of congestion. Therefore there is an increasing interest in modelling the time-period sensitivity of road freight transport to changes in travel time and cost by period. The model developed here is based on a stated preference survey amongst receivers of goods in Flanders and was implemented in the strategic freight transport model of the Flemish authorities.     

Estimating marginal external costs of transport in Delhi

This paper develops the model and methodology to estimate the marginal external cost of urban road transport, which is necessary for analysing optimal urban transport prices. Four major marginal external costs analysed in this paper include the marginal external costs for congestion, air pollution, road accidents and noise. The paper estimates the marginal external costs for cars and buses in peak and off-peak periods for Delhi urban agglomeration for the year 2005.     

Differentiating metropolitan transport disadvantage by mode: Household expenditure on private vehicle fuel and public transport fares in Brisbane,Australia

Public transport (PT) has become important in everyday travels in Australian cities. Rising PT fares create a competitive disadvantage against private motor vehicles which is threatening PT ridership. This paper seeks to gain further insights into transport disadvantage by exploring spatial patterns of household transport expenditure on PT fares and private vehicle fuel use for the Brisbane metropolitan area. Several datasets are used to measure mode-specific transport costs, including the journey to work matrix, fuel efficiency of the private vehicle fleet and PT fares for the city. Through an advanced spatial analysis, the results show that PT was not a cost-effective means of transport for households when compared to private motor vehicles. The paper then compares mode-specific trip costs with patterns of suburban socio-economic disadvantage in Brisbane. We demonstrate that the high PT fares increase household exposure to higher transport costs and compound other forms of transport disadvantage and vulnerability, particularly in outer suburban areas.     

Public transport strikes and traveller behaviour

In many countries strikes hit the public transport sector from time to time. Public transport strikes are important for transportation research because they can impact upon the perceived reliability of public transport services. Moreover, the traveller's most preferred alternative is removed from the choice set. The traveller is forced to make up his mind about his preferences; doing so may induce a shift from inert, habit-driven behaviour to rational behaviour. In this paper we review 13 studies of strikes in the public transport sector, discuss criteria that determine the kind and size of the effects of a public transport strike, and present the results of a survey carried out after a short, unannounced railway strike in the Netherlands. Our survey confirms the results of other studies. In the short-term mainly captive travellers are affected; these are mostly commuters without alternative modes of transport who are highly inflexible in their departure or arrival times. As a result, on average 10–20% of the trips are cancelled. Most travellers switch to the car (either as driver or passenger) and as a result road congestion increases. Longer-term effects include a decrease in market share for public transport, which various studies estimate to be between 0.3 and 2.5%. The effect of a strike on public transport rider-ship can be temporary or permanent, depending on the type of strike and the policy response to it.     

The capability of Motorways of the Sea of being competitive against road transport. The case of the Italian mainland and Sicily

The paper deals with a quantitative analysis on the competitiveness of intermodal transport, based on Motorways of the Sea (MoS), in comparison with all-road transport. This analysis is applied to MoS routes connecting the Italian mainland with Sicily. The study involves: a detailed intermodal network model which compares monetary costs and travel times from all relevant origins in the mainland to all relevant destinations in Sicily; and a survey carried out at some representative trucking firms operating to/from Sicily. The aim of the interviews has been: on one side to make a comparison between the theoretical and actual mode of transport and routes taken, and in case they are different, to understand the reasons of the discrepancy; on the other side to determine what are the main aspects taken into account by trucking companies in their modal choice, in order to understand how the competiveness of MoS against road transport can be improved. The results of the analysis show that the modal choice is affected by several elements: monetary costs and travel times; reliability of MoS routes; availability of MoS routes; MoS routes frequencies; but it resulted from the interviews that monetary costs and travel times are the most important factors considered by trucking companies in the modal and route choice. This study has also shown that an improvement of MoS routes on the Italian Adriatic side is necessary: actually, a strong reason for which in Italy MoS traffic is still a small percentage of road traffic is the low number of MoS routes currently in operation and their low frequency. This analysis could help decision makers, and maritime operators, to efficiently invest in the improvement of MoS routes. Moreover, this analysis, developed for an Italian case study, can be applied to other European and Mediterranean scenarios.     

Making public transport financially sustainable

Over the past two decades, Germany has improved the quality of its public transport services and attracted more passengers while increasing productivity, reducing costs, and cutting subsidies. Public transport systems reduced their costs through organizational restructuring and outsourcing to newly founded subsidiaries; cutting employee benefits and freezing salaries; increasing work hours, using part-time employees, expanding job tasks, and encouraging retirement of older employees; cooperation with other agencies to share employees, vehicles, and facilities; cutting underutilized routes and services; and buying new vehicles with lower maintenance costs and greater passenger capacity per driver. Revenues were increased through fare hikes for single tickets while maintaining deep discounts for monthly, semester, and annual tickets; and raising passenger volumes by improved quality of service, and full regional coordination of timetables, fares, and services. Those efforts by public transport agencies were enhanced by the increasing costs and restrictions on car use in German cities. Although the financial performance of German public transport has greatly improved, there are concerns of inequitable burdens on labor, since many of the cost reduction measures involved reducing wages or benefits of workers.     

Impacts of adverse weather on Arctic road transport

Arctic regions are geographically peripheral and characterized by cold climate, constantly changing weather conditions and strong seasonal variations. This article examines variations in road traffic volume due to adverse weather in an arctic region, a topic that has received little attention in the transportation literature. The subject of the case study is northern Norway's Saltfjellet mountain pass, which is part of European Highway 6 (Ev6). A succinct econometric structural equation model was used to test hypotheses regarding the impacts of fluctuations in temperature, precipitation and wind speed on passenger and freight traffic volumes. The findings indicate that there was some reduction in traffic volume during adverse weather, particularly with respect to passenger traffic. However, the day-to-day variations in traffic volumes were relatively low at the studied section of road, although it is known that generalized transport costs increase significantly in adverse weather due to delays related to poor driving conditions and closed roads. The studied region is rural with limited access to alternative routes or transport modes, thus making this portion of the road particularly important for the communities in the region. Hence, the road users have few other options than using this high-cost road in order to maintain their activities. The use of standardized parameters in transport models to predict the effect of adverse weather on traffic volume, would not be appropriate in the studied context. However, it is recommended that the benefits of reducing the extra costs that adverse weather impose on traffic are estimated and included in road-project assessment tools to capture the burden and strain imposed on road users. This to ensure that appropriate decisions are made regarding the development and improvement of transportation facilities, particularly in rural areas.     

Estimating annual average daily traffic and transport emissions for a national road network: A bottom-up methodology for both nationally-aggregated and spatially-disaggregated results

The regular and robust collection of traffic data for the entire road network in a given country will usually require high-cost investment in traffic surveys and automated traffic counters. This paper provides an alternative and low-cost approach for estimating annual average daily traffic values (AADTs) and the associated transport emissions for all road segments in a country. This is achieved by parsing and processing commonly available information from existing geographical data, census data, traffic data and vehicle fleet data. Ceteris paribus, we find that our annual average daily traffic estimation based on a neural network performs better than traditional regression models, and that the outcomes of our aggregated bottom-up road segment emission estimations are close to the outcomes from top-down models based on total energy consumption in transport. The developed approach can serve as a means of reliably estimating and verifying national road transport emissions, as well as offering a robust means of spatially analysing road transport activity and emissions, so as to support spatial emission inventory compilations, compliance with international environmental agreements, transport simulation modelling and transport planning.     

A vehicle quota integrated with road usage pricing: A mechanism to complete the phase-out of high fixed vehicle taxes in Singapore

This expository paper suggests a way to integrate a vehicle quota with usage based charging, including road pricing. It thereby challenges assumptions that ownership control requires high fixed vehicle costs. It focuses on Singapore, which famously has high purchase taxes and a Vehicle Quota System. These are effective but as a result of arguments against high fixed vehicle taxes, Singapore's authorities are gradually relaxing ownership control and increasing reliance on usage charges. This paper proposes a mechanism to ‘variabilise’ fixed taxes, including the vehicle permit price, in a way that is compatible with the vehicle quota. In particular, it proposes to integrate the vehicle quota with a new generation of electronic road pricing. This could make Singapore's shift to usage-based charging more efficient, complete and flexible while retaining the option to control vehicle numbers precisely.     

Interregional trade network analysis for road freight transport in Greece

This paper suggests a flexible decision support framework for the strategic planning of a freight transport hub network in Greece. The proposed methodology treats practical aspects related to the optimal number, location and geographical covering of hubs, through the network analysis of interregional trade, based on original survey data for road freight flows during 2004–2012. The results offer insights into the hierarchical structure of the network and related investment priorities, as the hub role of a prefecture is found to be strongly influenced by high population densities and manufacturing specialization, and its location along highway corridors.     

Exploring the impact of public transport strikes on travel behavior and traffic congestion

Public transport (PT) disruption can occur due to various factors such as malfunctions and breakdowns of vehicles, power outages, and personnel strikes. This paper explores the network-wide impacts of PT strikes (train, tram, and bus strikes) on traffic congestion in Melbourne, Australia using a network modeling approach. A primary survey aimed to investigate the mode shift of users when each public transport mode ceases was conducted with 648 public transport users in May 2016. Findings show that train withdrawal was expected to result in 43% of users shifting to car. Smaller yet significant shifts to car was also expected with bus withdrawal (34%) and tram withdrawal (17%). Based on the survey results and the use of a four-step transport model, train withdrawal was expected to increase the number of severely congested road links by 130% and reduce the average travel speed from 48 km/h to 39 km/h (20% decrease). Bus and tram withdrawal was also found to increase congestion although the result was less severe. Future research should investigate the switching behavior in actual withdrawal events and explore the long-term effects of public transport withdrawal.     

Modelling planner–carrier interactions in road freight transport: Optimisation of road maintenance costs via overloading control

A bi-level modelling approach is proposed to represent the interaction between the vehicle loading practices of road freight transport carriers, and the decisions of a road planning authority responsible both for road maintenance and for the enforcement of overloading control. At the lower (reactive) level, the overloading decisions of the carriers impact on road maintenance expenditure, while at the upper (anticipatory) level the planner decides fine and enforcement levels by anticipating the responses of the carriers. A case study using data from Mexico is used to illustrate the method.     

Flagging out in road freight transport: a strategy to reduce corporate costs in a competitive environment: Results from a longitudinal study in Austria

Following the example of maritime transport, the relocation of fleets abroad – referred to as flagging out – has become an important cost reduction strategy for road freight transport companies. Particularly after the EU Eastern Enlargement in 2004, many Austrian road freight transport companies took advantage of both the freedom of services and the lower costs in New Member States. This paper shows the results of four waves of surveys of Austrian road hauliers, describing developments, attitudes, motives and impacts of the phenomenon. There is also a discussion about the significance of the problem, which was seldom referred to in the scientific literature.     

The factors in residents' mobility in rural towns of China: Car ownership,road infrastructure and public transport services

The improvement of rural people's mobility in developing countries has informed many policies. Still, debates remain on which policies are efficient, for instance, building more roads, providing public transport or promoting car ownership. The empirical evidence for these debates at the national level remains scarce. As a result, this paper aims to provide fresh evidence for discussions by examining residents' mobility in China using nationwide survey data with 12,524 respondents from 119 rural towns. The results of the analysis show car ownership is the most significant factor influencing rural people's mobility than other factors. Higher car ownership relates to a higher travel frequency to counties or cities. Other kinds of transport vehicles (i.e. electric cars, motorcycles and electric bikes) also have positive but relatively weaker impacts on rural mobility. For public transport, it is more accessible to access bus stops, which encourages travel to higher-order centres rather than increasing the frequency of county bus services. The accessibility of high-quality road systems tends to have a negative influence and has combined effects with levels of local services. People from towns with insufficient local services and poor access to highways travel the most frequently to higher-order centres. This study highlights the critical role of road investments and car ownership enhancement policies in improving mobility. Moreover, this study also underscores the supplemental role of public transport services given the current low car ownership rates in rural towns of China and the global consensus on sustainable green transport development. It highlights the importance of engaging eco-friendly and locally adaptive transport alternatives, such as electric cars and electric bikes. It also calls for a rational distribution of bus stops and more flexible, convenient, and physically accessible public transport and carshare modes in rural China.     

The potential of horizontal collaboration in airport ground freight services

Since the global economic crisis of 2007–2011, the increasingly dynamic and challenging air cargo market in Europe has forced freight forwarders to improve their performance. In addition to improving their internal transport efficiency, they have also started to look at previously unexplored opportunities for horizontal collaboration in landside airport transport. The aim of this study is to reveal the potential of air cargo transport collaboration on a horizontal level, i.e. between multiple freight forwarders within a single airport. Reviewing existing literature on horizontal collaboration, with a focus on the air cargo industry, we propose a conceptual framework for transport collaboration in the air cargo industry. Based on a comprehensive study on air cargo transport movements within Schiphol, using a simulation model based on company data of 10,747 shipments (6977 tons of cargo) for a period of 30 days, we find several interesting results. Our main finding is that horizontal collaboration can improve the transport performance, by maintaining a high frequency of transport movements and maintaining an acceptable throughput time for air cargo shipments, and at the same time reduce transport costs by up to 40%. For smaller freight forwarders, the frequency of transport deliveries can even increase, while still allowing them to improve the average load factor of transport movements.     

Competition and horizontal integration in maritime freight transport

This paper models competition for freight transport between the road and maritime sectors. Operators offer differentiated services and there are economies of scale in the oligopolistic shipping line sector. Two types of integration between shipping lines are considered: in one of them the liners production processes remain separate (like in an alliance); in another economies of scale are further exploited. Typically maritime freight post-merger goes down. However, it may increase if the merger exploits further economies of scale, they are important and transport services are sufficiently differentiated. An empirical application to the routes Valencia–Antwerp and Valencia–Genoa is undertaken to confirm the predictions of the model. It is shown that, for both types of merger, user surplus increases when transport services are weakly differentiated and economies of scale are sufficiently small. These conditions also guarantee that a merger is socially beneficial.     

Decomposing the decoupling of Danish road freight traffic growth and economic growth

In recent years many European countries have seen a decoupling of the growth in road freight traffic (vehicle kilometres) from economic growth. A similar decoupling has not been observed in road freight transport (tonne kilometres). In this paper the historical growth in national Danish road freight traffic and transport is attributed to causes using a Divisia index decomposition method. It is demonstrated that overall road freight traffic growth is a consequence of often opposite pointing growth effects in the underlying factors. The observed decoupling of road freight traffic growth from economic growth is mainly the result of use of larger vehicles, increasing average loads, and less empty running. Growth in road freight transport is primarily caused by growth in production. A decrease in the number of tons lifted per tonne produced (the handling factor) is offset by an increase in the tonne kilometres per tonne lifted.     

Journey quality as the focus of future transport policy

While personal travel seems to be growing inexorably, along with car ownership, other transport parameters are invariant: average travel time, trip rate, and the proportion of household income spent on travel. Past growth in personal travel may, therefore, be attributed to longer trips carried out at higher speeds and made possible by higher expenditure. For the future, the need to limit environmental detriments associated with the transport system requires the diversion of growing personal expenditure, from further increasing the quantity of travel to enhancing the quality of the journey. Policies and technologies to achieve this objective are discussed, including discriminatory road pricing.