Economics of Transportation最新文献

{"title":"An analysis of labor regulations for transportation network companies","authors":"Akhil Shetty ,&nbsp;Sen Li ,&nbsp;Hamidreza Tavafoghi ,&nbsp;Junjie Qin ,&nbsp;Kameshwar Poolla ,&nbsp;Pravin Varaiya","doi":"10.1016/j.ecotra.2022.100284","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ecotra.2022.100284","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>There is a growing movement worldwide to regulate transportation network companies (TNCs) such as Uber and Lyft. This is driven by concerns over low driver wages. Two recent labor regulations that were passed in California are Assembly Bill 5 (AB5) and Proposition 22 (Prop 22). AB5 classifies drivers (and other gig-economy workers) as employees as opposed to contractors. The implication is that ride-hailing companies must pay drivers a minimum wage and associated benefits, and that the drivers work full-time. This negatively impacts the TNC business model in two ways: (a) wage effect: higher wages and benefits reduce profit margins significantly, and (b) flexibility effect: having a base of full time drivers reduces the ability of TNCs like Uber and Lyft to match driver supply to customer demand on a fine temporal scale. As an alternative, TNCs lobbied fiercely for Prop 22. This regulation offers drivers 120% of minimum wage, but only for driving hours spent servicing a trip (<em>engaged time</em>).</p><p>This paper studies the impacts of these and other possible regulations using data from the city of San Francisco. We develop a market-equilibrium model that captures passenger demand and driver supply in response to TNC’s pricing decisions. We show that the flexibility effect under AB5 can be largely mitigated by offering staggered driver shifts. The wage effect is substantial and undermines the viability of the TNC business model. We find that the wage effect leads to a 18% decrease in TNC profit, whereas the flexibility effect results in a profit reduction ranging between 1%–10% depending on how shifts are designed. On the other hand, Prop 22 will preserve TNC profitability, but the guaranteed engaged time wage promised by Prop 22 is insufficient to materially increase driver wages. We show that this concern cannot be addressed by further increasing the engaged time wage, as it will increase passenger fares, increase driver cruising time, reduce efficiency, and significantly reduce TNC profit. We then suggest suitable modifications to each of the above regulations that can improve outcomes for drivers and passengers without jeopardizing the TNC business model.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":45761,"journal":{"name":"Economics of Transportation","volume":"32 ","pages":"Article 100284"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42953025","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"What role for electric vehicles in the decarbonization of the car transport sector in Europe?","authors":"Christina Littlejohn ,&nbsp;Stef Proost","doi":"10.1016/j.ecotra.2022.100283","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecotra.2022.100283","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p><span><span><span><span>The transport sector is the only sector where carbon emissions<span><span> continue to grow. This has led policy makers to propose ambitious policies to reduce emissions in the car sector, in particular carbon emissions standards, portfolio mandates for Electric Vehicles and purchase taxes or subsidies. We use a stylized two-period model for the car </span>manufacturing sector to compare the </span></span>cost efficiency of these policies. The model has gasoline fueled cars (GV) compete with battery electric cars (EV). Both types of cars have endogenous technological progress that is triggered by </span>environmental policies, including tradable carbon emissions standards, portfolio mandates, </span>carbon taxes, purchase taxes and R&amp;D subsidies. Parked EVs can serve as batteries that help grid operators to shift off peak (renewable) electricity to peak hour supply. The model is calibrated to evaluate the </span>EU policy to reduce average carbon emissions of new cars by 37,5% in 2030 compared to 2021. We assess the cost-efficiency of policy instruments evaluating vehicle costs and prices, fuel costs, and externalities. We find that a carbon emissions standard achieves emission reductions at a much lower cost than a portfolio mandate for electric cars.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":45761,"journal":{"name":"Economics of Transportation","volume":"32 ","pages":"Article 100283"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136705942","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"I would if I could: Passing through VAT reductions in the german rail industry","authors":"Gernot Sieg,&nbsp;Jan Wessel","doi":"10.1016/j.ecotra.2022.100286","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ecotra.2022.100286","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Germany’s state-owned train operator Deutsche Bahn made a credible pledge to completely pass through a VAT<span> reduction to passengers. Using a price observation dataset, we find that pass-through rates for fixed-price tickets are indeed 100%, whereas pass-through rates for tickets with revenue-management-based prices can differ significantly from 100%. They vary over purchase-timing periods, departure weekdays, departure timeframes, and price levels<span>, thereby indicating that revenue management<span><span> systems can cause unequal pass-through to different customer groups. We also provide theoretical insights into the price-setting considerations of offering these two ticket types, and derive the monopoly pass-through rate for ad valorem </span>taxes.</span></span></span></p></div>","PeriodicalId":45761,"journal":{"name":"Economics of Transportation","volume":"32 ","pages":"Article 100286"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46153152","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"An integral interval timetable for long-distance passenger rail services: Time to reconsider targeting on-track competition","authors":"Christina Brand,&nbsp;Gernot Sieg","doi":"10.1016/j.ecotra.2022.100285","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ecotra.2022.100285","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In the course of introducing an integral interval timetable (IIT), it is possible to induce on-track competition. Regarding punctuality as an essential prerequisite for an IIT, we would not recommend doing so. Regarding overall welfare, the situation is less clear. We model both a route duopoly<span> and a monopoly, and find that in the latter, trains are more punctual and fares are higher. This is because a monopolist is not exposed to intramodal price competition, which may be at the expense of quality in the form of punctuality. Furthermore, a monopolist has a fixed cost advantage when investing in punctuality. If the market is regulated in such a way that rail traffic is maximized, welfare is higher in a monopoly. If such regulation is not binding anyway, this result does not change without it. Otherwise, without regulation, welfare is higher in a monopoly if the lower delay costs overcompensate for the higher fare, so that more passengers travel by train, compared to a duopoly, or if the fact that in the monopoly, there are fewer passengers is overcompensated for by the higher monopoly profit.</span></p></div>","PeriodicalId":45761,"journal":{"name":"Economics of Transportation","volume":"32 ","pages":"Article 100285"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46652992","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Exploring the nonlinear impact of air pollution on housing prices: A machine learning approach","authors":"Guojian Zou ,&nbsp;Ziliang Lai ,&nbsp;Ye Li ,&nbsp;Xinghua Liu ,&nbsp;Wenxiang Li","doi":"10.1016/j.ecotra.2022.100272","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ecotra.2022.100272","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p><span><span>Air pollution has profoundly impacted residents’ lifestyles as well as their willingness to pay for real estate. Exploring the relationship between air pollution and housing prices has become increasingly prominent. Current research on housing prices mainly uses the </span>hedonic pricing<span> model and the spatial econometric model, which are both linear methods. However, it is difficult to use these methods to model the nonlinear relationship between housing price and its determinants. In addition, most of the existing studies neglect the effects of multiple pollutants on housing prices. To fill these gaps, this study uses a machine learning approach, the gradient boosting decision tree (GBDT) model to analyze the nonlinear impacts of air pollution and the built environment on housing prices in Shanghai. The experimental results show that the GBDT can better fit the nonlinear relationship between housing prices and various explanatory variables compared with traditional linear models. Furthermore, the relative importance rankings of the built environment and air pollution variables are analyzed based on the GBDT model. It indicates that built environment variables contribute 97.21% of the influences on housing prices, whereas the contribution of air pollution variables is 2.79%. Although the impact of air pollution is relatively small, the marginal willingness of residents to pay for clean air is significant. With an improvement of 1 </span></span><span><math><mi>μ</mi></math></span>g/m<span><math><msup><mrow></mrow><mrow><mn>3</mn></mrow></msup></math></span> in the average concentrations of PM_2.5 and NO<span><math><msub><mrow></mrow><mrow><mn>2</mn></mrow></msub></math></span>, the average housing price increases by 155.93 Yuan/m<span><math><msup><mrow></mrow><mrow><mn>2</mn></mrow></msup></math></span> and 278.03 Yuan/m<span><math><msup><mrow></mrow><mrow><mn>2</mn></mrow></msup></math></span>, respectively. Therefore, this study can improve our understanding of the nonlinear impact of air pollution on housing prices and provide a basis for formulating and revising policies related to housing prices.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":45761,"journal":{"name":"Economics of Transportation","volume":"31 ","pages":"Article 100272"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2022-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48776440","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The effect of vertical product differentiation on fare and market share: Evidence from Delta Air Lines’ middle seat policy","authors":"Max J. Hyman ,&nbsp;Ian Savage","doi":"10.1016/j.ecotra.2022.100274","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ecotra.2022.100274","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Delta Air Lines engaged in vertical product differentiation during the COVID-19 pandemic. To ensure that passengers did not sit next to a stranger, Delta did not sell the middle seat on its flights that had them. Its principal rivals, American Airlines and United Airlines, sold all seats. Analysis of the non-stop routes on which Delta faced head-to-head competition with American or United reveals that Delta was able to charge a 10% fare premium and increase its relative market share by 4.7 percentage points from its middle seat policy.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":45761,"journal":{"name":"Economics of Transportation","volume":"31 ","pages":"Article 100274"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2022-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45449297","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Pricing regime choices for international airports: A rationale for the non-discrimination principle","authors":"Ming Hsin Lin","doi":"10.1016/j.ecotra.2022.100271","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecotra.2022.100271","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This study investigates whether airports should be prohibited from charging differential charges to airlines. Two countries’ (publicly owned) airports and airlines interlink, and passengers travel round-trips. Each country may choose pricing regimes (uniform versus discriminatory charges) and charge levels, sequentially or simultaneously, to maximize local welfare. Surprisingly, we find that each country choosing uniform charges achieves unique equilibrium in the sequential game, in which countries may commit to a particular pricing regime before setting charge levels. However, in the simultaneous game without the commitment effect, each country choosing discriminatory charges achieves the unique equilibrium. The total welfare achieved under the former equilibrium is larger than (equal to) that under the latter for asymmetric (symmetric) airline competition. These findings provide the economic rationale for the prevalent non-discriminatory principles for international airports from a local and global welfare perspective.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":45761,"journal":{"name":"Economics of Transportation","volume":"31 ","pages":"Article 100271"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2022-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212012222000223/pdfft?md5=0f8dd3ca6d1c2c23ff78885e1a0796f1&pid=1-s2.0-S2212012222000223-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136920008","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Persistence and dynamics in the efficiency of toll motorways: The Spanish case","authors":"José F. Baños-Pino,&nbsp;David Boto-García,&nbsp;Emma Zapico","doi":"10.1016/j.ecotra.2022.100270","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ecotra.2022.100270","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This study performs an empirical analysis of the productive efficiency of toll motorway concessionaire companies in Spain. We estimate a dynamic stochastic frontier model using an input-oriented distance function for 30 concessionaires during the 2003–2015 period. Considering a multi-output production technology with light and heavy vehicles, we estimate an autoregressive dynamic specification under a Bayesian framework that acknowledges persistence in firm efficiency due to adjustment costs. Our results reveal: (i) large persistence in productive inefficiency in the toll motorway sector, (ii) technical change from 2006 onwards, and (iii) increasing returns to scale. We derive both short- and long-run inefficiency estimates and document that long-run inefficiency increases with the number of stretches a firm manages; however, inefficiency is unrelated to the political authority that grants the concession. We also find that the marginal cost of light vehicle-kilometres is about half that for heavy vehicles.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":45761,"journal":{"name":"Economics of Transportation","volume":"31 ","pages":"Article 100270"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2022-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212012222000211/pdfft?md5=f898d0486aad44af0600a37fdfc74773&pid=1-s2.0-S2212012222000211-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48472142","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Optimal pricing and design of station-based bike-sharing systems: A microeconomic model","authors":"Sergio Jara-Díaz,&nbsp;André Latournerie,&nbsp;Alejandro Tirachini,&nbsp;Félix Quitral","doi":"10.1016/j.ecotra.2022.100273","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ecotra.2022.100273","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p><span>Carefully collected data of nine station-based Bike Sharing Systems (BSS) observed during several years, feed the theoretical formulation of three (aggregated) strategic models representing BSS operation from which the optimal design and pricing is derived. The models include both the operator's costs (investment and operation) and users' costs (time to walk to-from a station, waiting at a station, and time while cycling). The design variables are station spacing, number and capacity of stations, number of bicycles and bike repositioning. Once optimized, the design variables lead to cost functions and optimal pricing. In the first model, a permanent equilibrium without waiting times is assumed. In the second model, waiting at stations (due to a lack of bicycles or docking sites) is introduced in an aggregate form, which results in an increase in the optimal number of bikes and docking sites, making the optimal money price per trip to increase. The third and final model introduces repositioning of bicycles in order to diminish waiting time, making the optimal price grow even further. We obtain an optimal subsidy per trip that grows with the area covered by the BSS, which has implications for its actual implementation in large cities and their spatial and social equity. The optimal pricing scheme is caused by </span>economies of scale due to the reduction in users' access and egress times as the density of stations increases (positive externality) in addition to a fixed operator cost.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":45761,"journal":{"name":"Economics of Transportation","volume":"31 ","pages":"Article 100273"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2022-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49279632","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Spillover delay effects of damaging wildlife strike events at U.S. airports","authors":"Levi Altringer ,&nbsp;Sammy Zahran ,&nbsp;Stephanie A. Shwiff ,&nbsp;Michael J. Begier ,&nbsp;Aaron Anderson","doi":"10.1016/j.ecotra.2022.100252","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ecotra.2022.100252","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p><span>In this paper, we investigate the spillover<span> departure delay effects of damaging wildlife strike events that occur to commercial passenger airlines on flights scheduled to depart in the 24 h following a damaging wildlife strike event. Employing multiple empirical approaches, and investigating various differential effects, we identify significant excess departure delays in the 24-hour post-strike period. Our results suggest that the spillover delay effects of wildlife strike events are largely contained within the airline to which the strike occurred. The estimated effects are particularly large—5.4 to 8.3 times higher than expectation—for immediate within-airline, same-leg flights. Further, the behavior of the estimated spillover delay effects also depend on whether a strike flight’s destination airport is an airline hub or not. Our estimated average treatment effects indicate that, during the 24-hour post-strike period, the average damaging wildlife strike event generates a minimum of 570 aircraft minutes and roughly 40,000 passenger minutes of within-airline excess departure delay. From this, we estimate that damaging wildlife strike events generate around $25 million (2020 U.S. $) in spillover delay costs each year—an external cost borne by </span></span><em>airlines</em>, <em>passengers</em>, and the <em>economy at large</em>.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":45761,"journal":{"name":"Economics of Transportation","volume":"30 ","pages":"Article 100252"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42904426","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}