Thursday, October 28, 2010

Cost Damping in Travel Demand Models: Report of a study for the Department for Transport

Andrew Daly
RAND Technical Report



Cost Damping is a feature in some travel demand models by which the marginal disutility of cost (and, possibly, of time) declines as journey lengths increase. It is present in many models in practical use in the UK and the Department for Transport sought recommendations for the advice it issues to local planners in the ‘WebTAG’ system: www.dft.gov.uk/webtag. The report makes a review of UK and limited international practice, a significant part of it due to RAND Europe, and discusses the advantages, disadvantages and theoretical backgrounds of the methods that are used, which can be reduced to eight principal model formulations, each in turn belonging to one of four essentially different types. Evidence of the importance of Cost Damping in practice is assessed. Tests of the model formulations are proposed, including a novel ‘kilometrage’ test, and a number of the model forms used in practice are found to be unsatisfactory with respect to one or other of these tests. The use of distance as a variable in the models is found to be unsatisfactory. The report goes on to show that microeconomic theory gives little insight into the appropriate forms of Cost Damping. Finally, a small number of Cost Damping mechanisms are recommended as being acceptable for use in practical modelling.

Contents

Chapter One:
International expertise

Chapter Two:
The relationship of cost sensitivity and trip length

Chapter Three:
The impact of microeconomic theory

Appendix:
The Kilometrage Test

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Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Vision 2050: The new agenda for business

World Business Council for Sustainable Development
February 2010


The Vision 2050 report ( 2.6 MB) lays out a pathway leading to a global population of some 9 billion people living well, within the resource limits of the planet by 2050. This work results from an 18-month combined effort with CEOs and experts, and dialogues with over 200 companies and external stakeholders in some 20 countries.

The report spells out the “must haves” – the things that must happen over the coming decade to make a sustainable planetary society possible. These include incorporating the costs of externalities, starting with carbon, ecosystem services and water, into the structure of the marketplace; doubling agricultural output without increasing the amount of land or water used ; halting deforestation and increasing yields from planted forests: halving carbon emissions worldwide (based on 2005 levels) by 2050 through a shift to low-carbon energy systems and improved demand-side energy efficiency, and providing universal access to low-carbon mobility.

Vision 2050, with its best-case scenario for sustainability and pathways for reaching it, is a tool for thought leadership, a platform for beginning the dialogue that must take place to navigate the challenging years to come.

Document details
English document
Documento en español: Una nueva agenda para los negocios

Mobilidad: P. 39

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Experiencias de sistemas de transporte público en bicicleta para América Latina

Carlosfelipe Pardo, Patricia Calderón, Bernardo Baranda, Cécile Medina, Jonas Hagen, Xavier Treviño
Institute for Transportation and Development Policy
October 2010

Este documento presenta las características más relevantes de los sistemas de bicicletas públicas que hay en el mundo, además de algunos estudios de caso para su conocimiento en América Latina. El documento se concentra principalmente en describir los obstáculos más importantes en la implementación de un sistema de este tipo que podrían tenerse en cuenta al desarrollar uno similar en ciudades de América Latina. También se presentan algunas oportunidades o soluciones propuestas a estos obstáculos.

Press release

Enlace

PDF

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Movimiento portuario contenedorizado de América Latina y el Caribe - Primer Semestre 2010

CEPAL
Abril 2010



De acuerdo al último ranking, los 20 principales puertos de contenedores en América Latina y el Caribe, registraron un crecimiento de un 18.2% comparado con el primer semestre del 2009 y de un 9.6% en relación a la primera mitad del 2008, justo antes del inicio de la crisis económica. Sin embargo, la velocidad de recuperación no es la misma para todos y en el algunos casos esta revitalización no es suficiente para alcanzar el nivel del 2008, debido a problemas de congestión portuaria o de conexión terrestrem que están impactando su desempeño. Es por ello urgente llamar la atención de las autoridades portuarias y nacionales para resolver efectivamente los crecientes problemas de congestión portuaria y conectividad con el hinterland que están afectando a muchos puertos de la región, lo cual no solamente afecta el desarrollo portuario, sino que además amenaza seriamente la competitividad y desarrollo de toda la economía nacional.

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Best Practices in Transit Service Planning

Mark Mistretta, Jay A. Goodwill, Rob Gregg, and Christopher DeAnnuntis
National center for transit research
Center for urban transportation research
University of South Florida
March 2009


The provision of cost efficient and effective bus transit service is the basic premise upon which transit service is developed and the goal that all public transportation agencies strive to achieve. To attain this goal, public transit agencies must design their services around clear and defined principles, as well as a process to monitor the results achieved and to respond accordingly. This requires service design standards, an effective performance measurement system, and a systematic and continuous service evaluation methodology.

This research identifies existing best practices in transit service planning and develops a generic model approach that could be adapted and used by public transit agencies for fixed route bus transit service planning, specifically to include Service Design Standards, Service Performance Measurements, and a standard Service Evaluation Methodology. This research effort provides a summary of best practices and provides a "template" process tool that can be adapted and customized for use by all sizes of public transit agencies.

Abstract

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Friday, October 15, 2010

Modernizing Public Transportation: Lessons learned from major bus improvements in Latin America and Asia

October 2010



Research led by Senior Transport Engineer Dario Hidalgo provides key findings and lessons learned from a comprehensive review of major bus improvements in 13 Latin American (Curitiba, Quito, Bogotá, São Paulo, León, México City, Pereira, Guayaquil, Santiago and Guadalajara) and Asian cities.

"Modernizing Public Transport," a 40-page report released in October 2010, is based on research and interviews with planners and public officials in cities and transport agencies around the world.

The report reviews and synthesizes information regarding challenges experienced by transport system decision makers in three key areas: planning, implementation and operations. In order to assist urban transport planners and implementing agencies, the study also provides recommendations on avoiding or mitigating similar difficulties when introducing bus reforms in developing world cities.

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Friday, October 8, 2010

La Regulación de la Infraestructura de Transporte en el Perú: Lecciones y Agenda Pendiente

Juan Carlos Zevallos U.
Revista de regulación en infraestructura del transporte
Organismo supervisor de la inversión en infraestructura de transporte de uso público - OSITRAN
Año 1 volumen 1 Julio 2008
p.10-38


El objetivo del presente artículo consiste en realizar un balance del proceso regulatorio seguido en el sector de infraestructura de transporte bajo el ámbito del OSITRAN, para rescatar las principales lecciones e identificar los retos pendientes de la institución, y definir una agenda pendiente de mediano y largo plazo, en aras de velar mejor por los intereses de los inversionistas, usuarios, y hacerlo de forma transparente y justa.

Después de 10 años de experiencia en la regulación del sector, se pueden mencionar como lecciones: la importancia de contar con un margo legal y regulatorio claro y preciso; la necesidad de que el OSITRAN participe en el diseño de los Contratos de Concesión, en los procesos de licitación y tenga una mayor interacción con la agencia de competencia (INDECOPI); los beneficios que representan la incorporación de mecanismos de incentivos en dichos contratos y la existencia de los Consejos de Usuarios. Identificadas las lecciones, se propone la siguiente agenda: una mayor difusión de la cultura regulatoria, y fortalecimiento de la independencia, autonomía y capacidad del OSITRAN; apuntar a un marco regulatorio que mitigue las asimetrías de información entre empresas reguladas y el regulador, y que concentre esfuerzos hacia una regulación por incentivos; incrementar las sinergias con la agencia de competencia; y prestar atención a los retos que demanda la multimodalidad en materia regulatoria.

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