Airport regulation: tackling congestion and environmental problems

This paper deals with alternative policy options for tackling congestion and environmental problems in the German airport sector. The starting point of the discussion is the planned privatisation of several airports in Germany, which is normally justified on productive efficiency grounds. However, when designing an appropriate airport policy, allocative efficiency must also be regarded, which means the efficient usage of existing facilities and timely investment in new capacity. Airport charges must not only reflect operational costs of infrastructure supply but also take account of the social costs of airport usage. This paper shows the inefficiency of the current regulatory rules for solving congestion and environmental problems and proposes alternative solutions, taking into account the need for planning stability not only for the airlines but also for the airports, which is a prerequisite for lowering the transaction costs of the air transport and infrastructure system.

Efficient and Equitable Airport Slot Allocation

This paper studies slot allocation at congested airports in Europe. First, I discuss the inefficiencies of the current regulation, introduced as part of the liberalisation process of the air transport market. Then, I consider three marked based methods which are suitable to achieve a more efficient allocation of slots to airlines: congestion pricing, auctions and secondary trading. These methods are examined in terms of their ability to improve efficiency and in terms of their implications on the distribution of slots’ scarcity rents. Special attention is drawn to complementarities between slots. Finally, I propose to auction slots periodically, allowing secondary trading well before the first auction takes place. By selling slots before the first auction incumbents can be partially compensated for the subsequent withdrawal of their slots.

Overview of Infrastructure Charging, part 4, IMPROVERAIL Project Deliverable 9, “Improved Data Background to Support Current and Future Infrastructure Charging Systems”

Improverail aims are to further support the establishment of railway infrastructure management in accordance with Directive 91/440, as well as the new railway infrastructure directives, by developing the necessary tools for modelling the management of railway infrastructure; by evaluating improved methods for capacity and resources management, which allow the improvement of the Life Cycle Costs (LCC) calculating methods, including elements related to vehicle - infrastructure interaction and external costs; and by improving data background in support of charging for use of railway infrastructure. To achieve these objectives, Improverail is organised along 8 workpackages, with specific objectives, responding to the requirements of the task 2.2.1/10 of the 2nd call made in the 5th RTD Framework Programme in December 1999.This part is the task 7.1 (Review of infrastructure charging systems) to the workpackage 7 (Analysis of the relation between infrastructure cost variation and diversity of infrastructure charging systems).Before explaining the economic characteristics of railway and his basic pricing principles, authors must specify the objectives of railways infrastructure charging.principle of pricing ; rail infrastructure charging ; public service obligation ; rail charging practice ; Europe ; Improverail

Proposal For A Market-Based Solution to Airport Delays

With the clamor rising over airport delays and with both the Congress and the Administration considering remedies, this paper advocates the use of market mechanisms, specifically slot auctions, to promote efficient usage of airport capacity, reduce airport delays, and, more generally, promote competition.

A smart market for passenger road transport (SMPRT) congestion: an application of computational mechanism design

To control and price negative externalities in passenger road transport, we develop an innovative and integrated computational agent based economics (ACE) model to simulate a market oriented "cap" and trade system. (i) First, there is a computational assessment of a digitized road network model of the real world congestion hot spot to determine the "cap" of the system in terms of vehicle volumes at which traffic efficiency deteriorates and the environmental externalities take off exponentially. (ii) Road users submit bids with the market clearing price at the fixed "cap" supply of travel slots in a given time slice (peak hour) being determined by an electronic sealed bid uniform price Dutch auction. (iii) Cross-sectional demand data on car users who traverse the cordon area is used to model and calibrate the heterogeneous bid submission behaviour in order to construct the inverse demand function and demand elasticities. (iv) The willingness to pay approach with heterogeneous value of time is contrasted with the generalized cost approach to pricing congestion with homogeneous value of travel time.

A smart market for passenger road transport (SMPRT) congestion: an application of computational mechanism design

To control and price negative externalities in passenger road transport, we develop an innovative and integrated computational agent based economics (ACE) model to simulate a market oriented "cap" and trade system. (i) First, there is a computational assessment of a digitized road network model of the real world congestion hot spot to determine the "cap" of the system in terms of vehicle volumes at which traffic efficiency deteriorates and the environmental externalities take off exponentially. (ii) Road users submit bids with the market clearing price at the fixed "cap" supply of travel slots in a given time slice (peak hour) being determined by an electronic sealed bid uniform price Dutch auction. (iii) Cross-sectional demand data on car users who traverse the cordon area is used to model and calibrate the heterogeneous bid submission behaviour in order to construct the inverse demand function and demand elasticities. (iv) The willingness to pay approach with heterogeneous value of time is contrasted with the generalized cost approach to pricing congestion with homogeneous value of travel time

Privatisation of Network Industries in Germany : A Disaggregated Approach

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of market oriented institutional reforms in German network industries. A disaggregated approach is chosen, which differentiates between network services, infrastructure management and network infrastructure. The gradual opening of network service provision has already had a positive impact on the performance of all markets for network services. Nevertheless, harmonisation and integration of infrastructure management as well as an adequate regulation of access to the non-competitive infrastructures (monopolistic bottlenecks) is necessary in order to exploit the full benefits of liberalisation and privatisation of network service markets. --

Engage D5.6 Thematic challenge briefing notes (1st and 2nd releases)

Engage identified four thematic challenges to address research topics not contemporaneously (sufficiently) addressed by SESAR. This deliverable serves primarily as a record of the two sets of released thematic challenge briefing notes

Engage D2.6 Annual combined thematic workshops progress report (series 2)

The preparation, organisation and conclusions from the thematic challenge workshops, two ad hoc technical workshops, a technical session on data and a MET/ENV workshop held in 2019 and 2020 are described. Partly due to Covid-19, two of the 2020 thematic challenge workshops scheduled to take place at the end of 2020 were re-scheduled to January 2021. We also report on the preparation for these two workshops, while the conclusions will be included in the next corresponding deliverable