Keys to effective transit strategies for commuting

Commuting poses relevant challenges to cities\u2019 transport systems. Various studies have identified transit as a tool to enhance sustainability, efficiency and quality of the commute. The scope of this paper is to present strategies that increase public transport attractiveness and positively impact its modal share, looking at some case studies and underlining key success factors and possible elements of replica to be ultimately planned in some of the contexts of the Interreg project SMART-COMMUTING. The strategies analyzed in this paper concern prices and fares, service expansion, service improvements, usage of vehicle locators and other technology, changes to the built environment. Relevant gains in transit modal share are more easily achievable when considering integrations between various strategies, thus adapting and tailoring the planning process to the specific context

On the road to prosperity? The economic geography of China's national expressway network

Over the past two decades, China has embarked on an ambitious program of expressway network expansion. By facilitating market integration, this program aims both to promote efficiency at the national level and to contribute to the catch-up of lagging inland regions with prosperous Eastern ones. This paper evaluates the aggregate and spatial economic impacts of China's newly constructed National Expressway Network, focussing, in particular, on its short-run impacts. To achieve this aim, the authors adopt a counterfactual approach based on the estimation and simulation of a structural "new economic geography" model. Overall, they find that aggregate Chinese real income was approximately 6 percent higher than it would have been in 2007 had the expressway network not been built. Although there is considerable heterogeneity in the results, the authors do not find evidence of a significant reduction in disparities across prefectural level regions or of a reduction in urban-rural disparities. If anything, the expressway network appears to have reinforced existing patterns of spatial inequality, although, over time, these will likely be reduced by enhanced migration

China’s New Development Strategy: Environment and Energy Security

This paper analyzes China's development strategy by focusing on both global and regional approaches to solving problems of energy security and ecological imbalance by addressing specifically the problems of China’s energy security. PRC’s growing energy dependence has become a major concern for both economic and national security policymakers in that country. The ambitious goal of modernization of the economy along the lines of the other newly industrialized economies(NIEs) of Asia has succeeded only too well, and it is difficult to reorient economic priorities. If examined rigorously, such an economic strategic assumption can be seen to entail the goal of creating further technological capabilities. In particular, China seems to be firmly committed to the creation of a largely self-sustaining innovation system as part of a knowledge-based economy of the future . Such innovation systems, called positive feedback loop innovation systems or POLIS have been created by advanced countries, and NIEs such as South Korea and Taiwan are proceeding to create these as well. But this will add to its energy burden and further dependence on the US as the power which controls the key sea lanes. Only a strategic reorientation to building a self-sustaining POLIS and appropriate regional cooperation institutions can lead to the way out of the current dilemma for China. Fortunately, such a model of POLIS which is distributionally and ecologically sensitive can be built for China and applied strategically to lead towards a sustainable development trajectory. However, time is of the essence. Given the path dependence of development unless strategic disengagement from the existing path followed by a strategic engagement with the alternative strategy is begun within the next five years, it may well be too late. The stakes are indeed very high. A more detailed strategy paper based on the key ideas from the alternative strategy outlined here with concrete quantitative scenarios and feasibility studies along the lines of models sketched in the appendix ( and other, more detailed models) will go some distance towards giving the appropriate analytical foundations for the policy makers. The preliminary results confirm the predictions regarding fossil fuel-based energy shortage and lead towards a serious consideration of alternative energy sources. Achieving the twin goals of energy security and ecological balance are challenging but not impossible for China. Serious policy research can be used effectively if there is the political will to do so. The goal of regional cooperation is also achievable if patient negotiations in good faith can start in earnest. In particular, cooperation with other Asian economies, particularly Japan, Indonesia, Viet Nam and India will be crucial.This paper has sketched out the complexities of cooperation and conflict between China and Japan. Future work will address the problems of Regional cooperation for China in the East, South and South Asian context as well as in the context of Africa and Latin America.China, Development Strategy, Energy, Environment, POLIS, Innovation System, Regional Cooperation

An analysis of various policy instruments to reduce congestion, fuel consumption and CO2 emissions in Beijing

Using a nested multinomial logit model of car ownership and personal travel in Beijing circa 2005, this paper compares the effectiveness of different policy instruments to reduce traffic congestion and CO2 emissions. The study shows that a congestion toll is more efficient than a fuel tax in reducing traffic congestion, whereas a fuel tax is more effective as a policy instrument for reducing gasoline consumption and emissions. An improvement in car efficiency would also reduce congestion, fuel consumption, and CO2 emissions significantly; however, this policy benefits only richer households that own a car. Low-income households do better under the fuel tax policy than under the efficiency improvement and congestion toll policies. The congestion toll and fuel tax require the travel cost per mile to more than triple. The responsiveness of aggregate fuel and CO2 are, approximately, a 1 percent drop for each 10 percent rise in the money cost of a car trip.Transport Economics Policy&Planning,Airports and Air Services,Roads&Highways,Transport and Environment,Transport in Urban Areas,Urban Transport

Rise And Fall Of Cities, Measuring Spatial Clustering And Economies Of Urban Agglomeration In West Java

With others neighboring Provinces in the western part of Java, the West Java Province shares the southeast Asian most densely urban area (Bodebek as part of Jabodetabek and Greater Bandung). This research tries to identify the spatial clustering of urban economies activities using employment data from Economic Census of 2006 as proxy for urban agglomeration. Using the identification result, we then estimate aggregate production function of the urban agglomeration area to calculate it’s economies of agglomeration. From the result we found that both Bodebek and Greater Bandung metropolitan area are both have been reach the stage of saturation in their economic activity. Meanwhile, the alternative definition of Bodebek shows the stage of slight increasing return to scale, indicate the economies are trying to expand to regain the economies of scale that has been saturated in origin area.Sub National Data, Indonesia

Frontier Boomtown Urbanism in Ordos, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region

Ordos Municipality, in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, has emerged as one of China’s wealthiest places, with an economy driven by massive expansion of the local coal industry. This essay examines how this formerly poor region has experienced breakneck urban growth, becoming a resource-driven frontier boomtown. The frontier boomtown urbanism of Ordos highlights the impulse toward urban construction of the periphery that aspires to catch up with the metropolitan center and to articulate its own centrality through such urbanity