Browsing by Subject "Transport economics"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    Financing Infrastructure Over Time
    (American Society of Civil Engineers, 2001) Levinson, David M
    This paper investigates the problem of financing infrastructure over time when the number of users also changes. The problem is confronted in many fast-growing communities that need to coordinate the timing of infrastructure and development, yet still achieve economies of scale where they exist. The temporal free-rider problem is defined, whereby the group that finances the construction at a given time is not identical with the group that uses it. The continuous recovery method, which effectively establishes a property rights framework for infrastructure, is described. Continuous recovery enables existing residents to be appropriately compensated by new residents, independent of the number of new residents who ultimately arrive. The system is illustrated and compared with practice in a case that uses a noncontinuous cost recovery system.
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    Freeway Service Patrols: A Stated Preference Analysis of Insurance Values
    (Kluwer Publishers., 2004) Levinson, David M; Parthasarathi, Pavithra; Gillen, David W
    In this chapter, a Stated Preference (SP) analysis was carried out to identify the factors that influence people to choose highway assistance services (FSP) over private assistance services (PAS). The Los-Angeles FSP was used as a test case and the B/C ratios were also calculated based on the utilitytheFSPprovidestoanindividual. Differentvalueswerechosenforthe average time of waiting of the FSP and the B/C ratios were calculated in each case. The results indicate that the probability of an individual choosing the highway assistance services depends on the attributes of the program like the time of waiting for assistance and cost of waiting for assistance. The B/C ratios for the Los Angeles FSP were in the range 6.2–6.3.
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    The Full Cost of Air Travel
    (Transportation Research Board, 1999) Gillen, David; Levinson, David M
    In this paper we review the theoretical and empirical literature on the cost structure of the provision of air transportation and specify and estimate our own cost functions. We develop a full cost model which identifies the key cost components and then we measure those costs component by component: user costs, carrier costs, infrastructure costs, time and congestion costs, noise costs, accident costs, and pollution costs. Applying the models to data for domestic air travel in the California Corridor, the total long run average cost is estimated to be $0.13 per passenger kilometer traveled. The single largest cost category is owning and operating a plane. In general, because of large fixed cost components, the average cost of infrastructure exceeds the marginal cost.
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    The Full Cost of Intercity Highway Transportation
    (Pergamon, 1998) Levinson, David M; Gillen, David
    In this paper we review the theoretical and empirical literature on the cost structure of the provision of intercity highway transportation and specify and estimate our own cost functions . We develop a full cost model which identifies the key cost components and then estimate costs component by component: user costs, infrastructure costs, time and congestion costs, noise costs, accident costs, and pollution costs. The total long run average cost is $0.34 per vehicle kilometer traveled. The single largest cost category is freeflow travel time. While the marginal cost of infrastructure is higher than its average cost, indicating that new construction is increasingly expensive, the marginal cost of driving (user fixed and variable costs) is less than the average cost, indicating that by increasing travel the user can spread his fixed cost of a vehicle over more trips without penalty.
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    The social costs of intercity transportation: a review and comparison of air and highway
    (Taylor & Francis, Ltd, 1998) Levinson, David M; Gillen, David; Kanafani, Adib
    This paper provides a comprehensive survey of the literature on the measures of social costs, providing an indication of the state of engineering and economic literature. We operationalize the new thinking about which externalities seem appropriate to consider in an analysis of the transportation system. We construct measures of each externality: noise, air pollution, accidents, and congestion for the highway and air transportation modes, where possible as a function of the amount of output or use, rather than as simple unit costs. We find that noise is the dominant cost of air travel, followed by congestion, air pollution and accidents. For highway travel, accidents are the most significant cost, followed by congestion, noise, and air pollution. The social costs of highway travel are about 15 percent of the full cost of a highway trip, while the smaller social costs of air travel are only 5 percent of the full cost of an air trip. A highway trip generates four to five times as much externality as an air trip.
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    Why States Toll: An Empirical Model of Finance Choice
    (University of Bath, 2001) Levinson, David M
    This paper examines the question of why some states impose tolls while others rely more heavily on gas and other taxes. A model to predict the share of street and highway revenue from tolls is estimated as a function of the share of non-resident workers, the policies of neighboring states, historical factors, and population. The more non-resident workers, the greater the likelihood of tolling, after controlling for the miles of toll road planned or constructed before the 1956 Interstate Act. Similarly if a state exports a number of residents to work out-of-state and those neighboring states toll, it will be more likely to retaliate by imposing its own tolls than if those states don't. The policy implications for the future of congestion pricing are clear, if hard to implement. Decentralization of finance and control of the road network from the federal to the state, metropolitan and city and county levels of government will increase the incentives for the highway-managing jurisdiction to impose tolls. And tolls are a necessary prerequisite for an economically efficient strategy of congestion pricing.