About the "away goals rule" in association football:Does scrapping the rule increase the fairness of the game?

The present study analyzes all major international football tournaments organized by UEFA and CONMEBOL during a period of 30 years to assess the impact of the away goals rule (AGR). The study takes advantage of natural experiment given by the differentiated application of the AGR by both confederations, in order to assess the efficacy and the consequences of the rule in terms of both the total amount of goals being scored (the original intention of the rule) and the teams that progressed onto the next stages. The results show that the AGR seems to have failed to fulfill its original goal of increasing both scoring by teams playing away and scoring in general. The AGR is found to have a significant impact favoring the chances of the team starting the series at home. However, it still does not translate into a higher probability of progressing onto the next stage than the team closing the series at home. Closing the series at home has an intrinsic advantage, which is only countered, although not completely, by the impact of the AGR. Regarding tiebreakers, we observe that closing the series at home has a positive impact no matter whether overtimes with AGR or penalty shootouts are used as tiebreakers. However, playing an overtime, when no AGR is set in place has a determining influence favoring the team closing the series at home

From riding to driving:The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on public transit in Metro Vancouver

This study analyzed a panel-based dataset to understand the effect of COVID-19 on transport behavior in Metro Vancouver, Canada, between December 2020 and May 2021. Findings from the sample indicate a decline in transit users compared to pre-pandemic levels and an increase in car use. On the other hand, we saw a shift to a more positive perception of transit in May 2021, while also capturing an increase in perceived levels of crowding. The study underscores the necessity for transit agencies to focus on instilling the feeling of safety among the population, as the majority of those who have not used transit since the beginning of the pandemic reported their willingness to return only with widespread vaccination, community immunity, or other broad successful treatments

Commuting to the future: Assessing the relationship between individuals’ usage of information and communications technology, personal attitudes, characteristics and mode choice

Innovations in transportation and communications technologies influence the development of cities and how people move through them. Since the widespread adoption of smartphones, mobility and information and communication technology (ICT) have become increasingly interconnected, and there may be a possibility for mobile technologies to nudge, or influence, individuals to travel using sustainable, and collective modes. It remains unclear whether social, financial, or ICT incentives would be effective to nudge the use of sustainable modes. The objective of the study is to understand the reasons affecting modal choices and how the use of ICTs and personal opinions and attitudes influence the decision-making process. A discrete choice model is used to consider five transportation alternatives including three single modes, namely bicycle, transit, and car, and two multimodal possibilities, bicycle and transit as well as park and ride (car and transit). The target population for this study are Utrecht University employees, who travel to a large university campus located in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The results of the person-based mode-choice model demonstrate that strong correlations exist between the kinds of mobile applications individuals use, their attitudes towards travel, their personal characteristics and their transportation mode. No mobile application seems to favor the use of active modes, which cast doubts upon the use of ICT to promote sustainable transportation. However, social incentives may play an important role for certain groups as individuals who are influenced by their friends, family, and colleagues, are less likely to travel by car or to use park & ride facilities

Modellierung mit dem Unbeobachteten / Unbeobachtbaren : eine gründliche Analyse der Modellierung in Hinsicht auf die Rolle von Einstellungen und Wahrnehmungen in den Entscheidungsprozessen

Hybride Auswahlmodelle mit latenten Variablen zielen darauf ab, immaterielle Attribute der Individuen und der Alternativen, wie z.B. Einstellungen, Wahrnehmungen usw. zu erfassen und dadurch die Vorhersagefähigkeit und den Realismus von diskreten Auswahlmodellen zu erhöhen. Obwohl deren Grundlagen bekannt und etabliert sind, wurden einige technische und theoretische Aspekte noch nicht umfassend untersucht; dies hat zu Kontroversen in der Literatur geführt. Diese Dissertation zielt darauf ab, einige dieser noch unklaren Aspekte zu identifizieren und ausführlich zu analysieren. Dadurch sollten klare Erkenntnisse bezüglich der Modellierung mit latenten Variablen gewonnen und neue methodologische Werkzeuge für angewandte Forscher bereitgestellt werden. Zunächst wird die Eignung der sequentiellen Schätzung von hybriden Auswahlmodellen diskutiert und es werden Bedingungen zur ihrer Nutzung als second-best-Ansatz abgeleitet. Dazu werden die Unterschiede in der Wirkung zwischen der Darstellung von Einstellungen und Wahrnehmungen durch latente Variablen analysiert. Es kann festgestellt werden, dass die Ersten Ähnlichkeiten mit sozioökonomischen Eigenschaften aufweisen, während die Zweiten den Attributen der Alternativen ähneln. Daher ist es empfehlenswert, systematische Geschmacksvariationen sowie Kategorisierungen zu betrachten. In diesem Sinne wird die Kategorisierung der latenten Variablen untersucht und ein neuer Ansatz zu ihrer Einbeziehung in das Modell vorgeschlagen. Aufgrund theoretischer als auch statistischer Vorteile ist dieser Ansatz den bislang existierenden Alternativen überlegen. Die Hypothese der Stetigkeit von Wahrnehmungs- und Einstellungsindikatoren sowie deren Auswirkungen wird analysiert. Es wird festgestellt, dass bei fehlender Berücksichtigung ihrer diskreten Art verzerrte Ergebnisse auftreten, insbesondere wenn die latenten Variablen eine hohe Variabilität aufweisen. Ferner werden neue methodologische Ansätze vorgeschlagen, um fehlende Einkommensangaben der Befragten zu betrachten bzw. um die Korrelation zwischen Präferenzen des gleichen Individuums in unabhängigen Wahlsituationen anzugehen.Hybrid choice models with latent variables aim to capture unobserved attributes of the individuals and the alternatives, such as attitudes, perceptions, etc., increasing the predictive capability and realism of discrete choice models. Even though, their fundaments are fairly well-established, some technical and theoretical issues have not been extensively analyzed, leading to controversies in the literature. This doctoral dissertation aims to identify and analyze some of these methodological issues, offering an in-depth discussion and clear insights on the way these issues should be treated, providing new methodological tools to help applied researchers to successfully develop their own models. First, the suitability of the sequential estimation of hybrid choice models is discussed, deriving conditions under which sequential estimation is a suitable second-best. The differences between latent constructs representing attitudes and perceptions are established with respect to how the former resemble socio-economic variables, while the latter depict attributes of the alternatives. Hence, considering systematic taste variations as well as categorizations may be advisable, when addressing perceptions and other similar constructs. Along these lines, a new approach to categorize latent variables that exhibits theoretical advantages as well as a better treatment of the error term than existing alternatives is proposed. The hypothesis of continuity of perceptual and attitudinal indicators as well as their implications is also analyzed, establishing that neglecting their nature leads to biased results and that the magnitude of this bias depends on the variability induced into the discrete choice component. Further, new methodological approaches are proposed to address missing income information and the correlation among the preferences of a given individual in independent choice situations. Both methods are tested in the context of preferences for electromobility

Should competition between regulated public transport and autonomous ride-sharing providers be allowed?:An outlook into a possible transport paradox

Provision of public transport with autonomous vehicles may enable the implementation of more flexible services, characterised by a reduction of the vehicle's capacity (and increase in the number of vehicles) - leading to fewer stops, better frequencies, and more individualised services (origins and destinations). If public transport provision is centralised, increasing flexibility will lead to reductions in average travel times (although not to the optimal capacity), as the provider internalises congestion costs; however, if public transport is provided in competitive conditions, it may lead to situations in which the entire society ends up worse off, representing a clear transportation paradox

Should competition between regulated public transport and autonomous ride-sharing providers be allowed?: An outlook into a possible transport paradox

Provision of public transport with autonomous vehicles may enable the implementation of more flexible services, characterised by a reduction of the vehicle's capacity (and increase in the number of vehicles) - leading to fewer stops, better frequencies, and more individualised services (origins and destinations). If public transport provision is centralised, increasing flexibility will lead to reductions in average travel times (although not to the optimal capacity), as the provider internalises congestion costs; however, if public transport is provided in competitive conditions, it may lead to situations in which the entire society ends up worse off, representing a clear transportation paradox