Road Pricing: Old Beliefs, Present Awareness and Future Research Patterns

The theoretical evolution of academic beliefs and practical policymakers' perceptions of road pricing (from now on rp) as an instrument of efficient and equitable allocation of resources are described and analysed. The aim of the paper is to reconstruct the logical evolution of the theory behind rp in order to understand why there has been scarce policy impact in spite of a long theoretical tradition. In so doing I try to bring to the fore the fundamental issues that will have to be tackled by future research in order to generate consensus around this policy instrument. The paper is structured in four parts. In the first part the fundamental issues of a typical rp model are considered. Among the most important aspects one recalls: first-best/second-best environment, short/long term analysis, homogeneous/heterogeneous time evaluation, perfect/imperfect information, efficiency/equity analysis, use/non-use of resources generated, private/public transportation provision. In the second part the characterising parameters have been interpreted in the light of the Smeed Report of 1964 that can be considered representative of the "old belief". In the third part the "present awareness" is expressed by an analysis of the main contents of the book Internalising the Social Costs of Transport of 1993. In the fourth part some reflections on the most promising research areas for rp implementation and acceptance are put forward. Specific research will have to be conducted concerning social acceptability and feasibility, simultaneous cost internalisation, behavioural assumptions, information and pricing interconnections.Road pricing, Social Acceptability, Congestion, Congestion charging

DISSECTING PREFERENCE HETEROGENEITY IN CONSUMER STATED CHOICES

This paper investigates alternative methods to account for preference heterogeneity in choice experiments. The main interest lies in assessing the different results obtainable when investigating heterogeneity in various ways. This comparison can be performed on the basis of model performance and, more interesting, by evaluating willingness to pay measures. Preference heterogeneity analysis relates to the methods used to search for it. Socioeconomic variables can be interacted with attributes and/or alternative-specific constants. Similarly one can consider different subsets of data (strata variables) and estimate a multinomial logit model for each of them. Heterogeneity in preferences can be investigated by including it in the systematic component of utility or in the stochastic one. Mixed logit and latent class models are examples of the first approach. The former, in its random variable specification, allows for random taste variations assuming a specific distribution of the attribute coefficients over the population and permit to capture additional heterogeneity by consenting parameters to vary across individuals both randomly and systematically with observable variables. In other words it accounts for heterogeneity in the mean and in the variance of the distribution of the random parameters due to individual characteristics. Latent class models capture heterogeneity by considering a discrete underlying distribution of tastes. The small number of mass points are the unobserved segments or behavioral groups within which preferences are assumed homogeneous. The probability of membership in a latent class can be additionally made a function of individual characteristics. Alternatively, heterogeneity can be incorporated in terms of the random component of utility. The covariance heterogeneity model adopts the second approach representing a generalization of the nested logit model and can be used to explain heteroscedastic error structures in the data. It allows the inclusive value parameter to be a function of choice alternative attributes and/or individual characteristics. An alternative method refers to an extension of the multinomial logit model in which the integration of unobserved heterogeneity is performed through random error components distributed according to a tree. An interesting improvement in modeling preference heterogeneity is related to its simultaneous inclusion in both systematic and stochastic parts. A valid example is the inclusion of an error component part in a random coefficient specification of the mixed multinomial logit model. The empirical data used for comparing the various methods tested relates to departure airport choice in a multi-airport region. The area of study includes two regions in central Italy, Marche and Emilia-Romagna, and four airports: Ancona, Rimini, Forlì and Bologna. A fractional factorial experimental design was adopted to construct a four alternative choice set and five hypothetical choice exercises in each questionnaire. The selection of the potentially most important attributes and their relative levels was developed on the basis of previous research.heterogeneity, airport choice, stated preferences, discrete choice model.

The Demand Potential of an Urban Freight Consolidation Centre

Urban Transport, stated preferences, service contract.

Individual uncertainty and the political acceptability of road pricing policies

This paper investigates the issue of political feasibility of a road pricing policies (RPP). Referring to a literature developed in international trade theory (Fernandez and Rodrick, 1991), this paper presents a model regarding the role and relevance of individual specific uncertainty in explaining the political acceptability of RPP. It is shown that: a) without money transfers, i.e., reimbursements of the tax levied, and with no uncertainty, RPP might not be accepted thus giving rise to an evident trade-off between economic efficiency and political acceptability; b) when individual specific uncertainty is assumed, optimal level of RPP, may, under given conditions concerning the number of voters and people preferences, become politically acceptable. Two different strategies can be envisaged to render RPP politically feasible: gradual and radical. The first strategy foresees a low corrective tax that eliminates only a small proportion of the excessive use of the public good and provides an acceptable balance between monetary loss and environment improvement. Alternatively, a radical strategy would foresee a much higher level of tax substantially reducing the number of people consuming the public good and providing a potentially higher and concentrated payoff to those still consuming it after the policy is implemented. This latter policy appears more easily sustainable under majority than unanimity voting.transport pricing, road pricing, specific uncertainty

Quality and Public Transport Service Contracts

Public authorities and transport operators are both involved in the provision of public transport services. There is a contrast between the social goals of the former and the private ones of the latter. Regulation plays an important role especially failing competition. Service contracts are the natural method to set bilateral After a brief description of the most important regulatory procedures, we focus our attention on the quality framework in service contracts. In recent years the inclusion of quality requirements in contracts is becoming common practice, especially when adopting price cap regulation. This paper suggests a criterion for service quality definition, measurement and integration in contracts for the production of socially valuable transport services. Using stated preferences methods and choice-based conjoint analysis to analyse customer preferences we estimate the passengers’ evaluation of different service features and calculate a service quality index. A case study demonstrates the procedure to follow for measuring service quality in local public transport.service quality, stated preferences, service contract.

Road pricing as a citizen-candidate game

We construct a political economy model to analyze the political acceptability of road pricing policies. We use a citizen-candidate framework with a population composed by three groups differing for their income level. We show that road pricing policies are never applied when there is no redistribution of the resources in favour of other modes of transport or when the congestion of these types of transport is relatively high. The results suggest that the efficiency of the redistribution of resources from road to the alternative types of transport as well as the fraction of the population that uses the road transport are key factors in explaining the adoption of road pricing schemes.Road pricing; Political acceptability; Citizen-candidate.

Bottleneck Congestion and Modal Split Revisited

The paper examines the efficiency of alternative road pricing schemes when an alternative railroad service is available. The paper uses a model, developed by Tabuchi (1993), in which road transport presents a bottleneck congestion technology while railroad transport shows economies of scale with respect to the number of train users. The competition between the two modes is assumed to be on cost basis only. It is found that if the railroad fare is set equal to the average cost, the relative efficiency of the regimes depends on parameters' values. The numerical simulation shows that the fine toll regime is generally to be preferred to the alternative regimes but when the fixed railroad cost is large enough so that the inefficient exploitation of the scale economies is less than compensated by the toll revenue.Road transport, Public transport, Congestion, Congestion pricing

Road pricing as a citizen-candidate game

We construct a political economy model to analyze the political acceptability of road pricing policies. We use a citizen-candidate framework with a population composed by three groups differing for their income level. We show that road pricing policies are never applied when there is no redistribution of the resources in favour of other modes of transport or when the congestion of these types of transport is relatively high. The results suggest that the efficiency of the redistribution of resources from road to the alternative types of transport as well as the fraction of the population that uses the road transport are key factors in explaining the adoption of road pricing schemes

The relevance of the concepts of specific and generic goods for the understanding of freight transport demand

In this paper, we investigate the theoretical and empirical relevance of the distinction between generic goods and specific goods for the understanding of freight transport demand. Specific goods are Taylor-made for a single customer while generic goods are produced irrespective of the final customer who will buy them. Theoretically, the distinction lays on a different relationship with time, based for specific goods on a trade-off between transport duration and cost, and for generic goods on optimal stock. The distinction affects shippers’ valuation of freight transport attributes such as value of time, value of transport time reliability and value of the risk of loss and damages. The theoretical analysis has not so far been able to establish conclusively how shippers’ valuation of freight transport attributes is affected by the type of good produced. Hence, some empirical evidence derived from stated preference data collected among Italian shippers is used to shed some light on the topic.generic good, specific good, freight transport, freight service evaluation, stated preferences.

Mode choice models with attribute cutoffs analysis: the case of freight transport in the Marche region

This paper shows that, when modelling freight demand, taking into consideration the presence of attribute cutoffs is important and has relevant repercussions on the estimates of service attributes coefficients. In this paper we focus on mode choice models for freight transport demand in the Marche region in Italy. Specific reference is paid to furniture and metallurgic productive sectors given their relevance for the region and their potential vocation for intermodal transport. Preference elicitation is done using choice based conjoint analysis. The study shows that there is a structural difference among the two sectors and that they have heterogeneous preferences