Transport Pricing Research Articles

Mobility-as-a-Service and the role of multimodality in the sustainability of urban mobility in developing and developed countries

Mobility as a service (MaaS) is an emerging framework that integrates multiple transport services into a single and intuitive platform. This paper contrasts the urban passenger transport markets in developed versus developing economies to understand the challenges of integrating mobility services using the MaaS framework, with a focus on decarbonization and sustainability as societal goals. In addition, we conducted a Life Cycle Assessment of carbon emissions and energy requirements of travel alternatives in the city of Santiago, Chile, to shed light on the effects of multimodality as an environmental tool. A summary of findings follows. Data sharing and open data are new in developing countries, and thus more investment in data infrastructure is required so that MaaS can leverage digital technology and network optimization. If the scalability of MaaS is an open question in developed countries, it is more so in developing countries, owning to institutional and financial constraints that are present in the latter. The lack of public subsidies to support formal public transport is a key limitation for the implementation of MaaS schemes and multimodal frameworks in the developing world. Regarding formality, in countries with an informal public transport sector, a potential implementation of MaaS will be spatially constrained to those locations where public transport operates formally and frequently (BRT and rail lines), limiting its spatial coverage and posing social equity issues. In countries with scarce or no public funds available for the transport sector, MaaS could be used as a catalyst for a broad environmental and equity-seeking transport pricing reform which requires a direct involvement of public sector in both regulation and financial backing. We conclude that the formalization and general improvement of the public transport sector, the regulation of shared-mobility platforms including the formalization of the work of drivers, and the setting of proper pricing and subsidization instruments in the direction of internalizing the social costs of motorized traffic, are all prerequisites for any MaaS system that aims to improve economic efficiency, social equity, and sustainability.

Analysis of Determinants of Consumer Decisions on the Use of Trans Banyumas and Gojek

Current technological developments affect people's mobility in using transportation. The presence of online transportation has an impact on available public transportation. The study aims to determine the factors that influence consumer decision makers on the selection of conventional transportation services and online transportation. Data processing using regression analysis using SEM PLS tools. The results of SEM PLS from the total influence value of online transportation (y) have an influence on the price factor (x1) 0.506, security (x2) 0.488, ease of access (x3) 0.448, and convenience (x4) 0.470. As well as in conventional transportation (y) has a significant influence on the price factor (x1) 0.319, security (x2) 0.299, accessibility (x3) 0.331 and convenience (x4) 0.308. So that the significant variables are online prices for online transportation and ease of access to conventional transportation. The most influential SEM PLS value of online transportation is the evaluation price expected by consumers, namely the price is directly proportional to the facilities provided. While the influential factor on conventional transportation is the ease of access to the expected evaluation, namely the addition of shellter / bus stops.

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Sustainable regional rail system pricing using a machine learning-based optimization approach

AbstractRegional transport pricing is indeed very vital in urban settings where the transportation network is spread out across large areas and can influence travel behavior and the sustainability of cities. Therefore, in addition to existing pricing systems, such as flat fare, distance-based fare, and zonal pricing, this study proposes a sustainable approach to regional rail system pricing using rent prices and a transportation affordability index. The proposed model aims to reduce commuters' overall travel distance in order to reduce air pollution and maintenance costs for public transportation vehicles. Rent-based pricing encourages people to rent houses in regions that shorten their travel distances and fill a gap in the literature on regional rail system pricing by dealing with the decentralization of the cities. A two-step clustering and non-linear optimization modeling approach are proposed based on face-to-face surveys with regional rail system passengers. For various clusters of stations, rent per income rates and rental-based ticket prices were obtained. Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis is conducted to evaluate different conditions of the affordability index and rent prices in the studied regions. Compared to the current pricing system, ticket revenues increased by 3.88% and 1.68% in rent-based pricing.

Perceived Constraints in High-Density Apple Cultivation by the Farmers of the Mid-Hills Area of Himachal Pradesh

The study was carried out in area of Kandaghat and Solan blocks of Himachal Pradesh, India from November 2021 to April 2022 to study the constraints in high-density apple cultivation by the farmers of the mid-hills area of Himachal Pradesh, India. The present study fully relied on the primary data through a properly structured schedule for the production year 2021–2022, with a sample size of 60 farmers involved in high-density apple plantations. Garret’s ranking technique was used to find constraints perceived by the high-density apple cultivators. The objective of the research was to identify the prevailing problems of the high-density apple sector in the selected area. In this study the major problems faced by the high-density apple growers in production were the high cost of high-density apple plants, followed by identifying the disease, costly labor, and lack of technical guidance. Major marketing-related constraints expressed in the marketing of high-density apples were the problem of fluctuation of price, the high price of transportation, distant market, and high commission charges, further the data revealed that the major environmental and other related constraints were that the grading process and certification process seemed to be costly, problems from hailstorms were also found. The study also highlighted the need of proper marketing facilities as marketing helps in improving the living standard and eliminate the constraints in product and services.

Fare evasion in public transport: How does it affect the optimal design and pricing?

Fare evasion produces significant revenue losses in public transport systems. Recent research has found that low service quality and high prices are important determinants of fare evasion. However, the economic literature that studies the optimal public transport provision has overlooked the phenomenon. We develop a demand model of horizontal differentiation to investigate how fare evasion affects the design and pricing of public transport that maximizes utilitarian social welfare. We show analytically that fare evasion can create incentives to reduce public transport prices and improve service quality, putting upward pressure on its subsidization. We perform numerical simulations and sensitivity analysis to quantify the impact of these incentives on the public transport provision. These simulations confirm that the incentive to reduce fare evasion can lead to an optimal design and price that requires subsidies.

Energy consumption structure model considering urban green and low-carbon transportation

<p class="Abstract">The importance of energy conservation and emission reduction has become the consensus of the international community, and Iraq is also actively improving the urban public transportation system to control carbon emissions. This paper collects panel data of Tikrit city in Iraq in the past 3 years, constructs a random effect variable coefficient model, and studies the impact of the development of urban low-carbon transportation system on the energy consumption structure. The study finds that the government can use public transportation pricing strategies to influence consumers. In order to realize the optimization of energy consumption structure, the impact of electric vehicles on energy consumption structure will decrease with the increase of urban development. The transportation sector can increase the purchase and travel costs of traditional cars by restricting travel, purchases, and charging parking fees, which affects the number of private cars and reduces the obstacles to optimizing the energy consumption structure. The government should increase financial subsidies, improve rail transit and reasonable bus (electric) vehicle operation systems, increase investment in new energy vehicle research and development, and encourage high energy density and low power consumption technologies. development, increase residents’ demand for new energy passenger vehicles, and optimize the energy consumption structure.</p>

INDONESIAN STOCK MARKET REACTION BEFORE AND AFTER THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF FIRST COVID-19 CASE

INDONESIAN STOCK MARKET REACTION BEFORE AND AFTER THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF FIRST COVID-19 CASE

INDONESIAN STOCK MARKET REACTION BEFORE AND AFTER THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF FIRST COVID-19 CASE

This study aims to test whether the event of the announcement of the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Indonesia on March 2, 2020 affected the Indonesian stock market. A total of 119 samples used in this research event study were taken from the share prices of banks, transportation, and consumer good companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange during the 21-day estimation window. The samples were taken using purposive sampling techniques and then the data was analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) ver. 28. One Sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test is used as a data normality test and hypothesis testing is conducted using the Paired-Sample Wilcoxon Signed Rank test. The results showed that there was no significant difference in the average abnormal return of transportation companies and banks before and after the announcement of the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Indonesia. Meanwhile the average abnormal return of consumer goods companies showed significant difference before-after the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Indonesia is announced.

AN EXAMINATION OF THE BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES OF THE FUEL SUBSIDY REMOVAL ON THE NIGERIAN ECONOMY IN THE FOURTH REPUBLIC

The removal of fuel subsidy has emerged as a persistent issue in the second quarter of Nigeria's Fourth Republic. Despite the long-term benefits of the policy, Nigerians have consistently resisted attempts by the regime to revert to it. However, this government policy has received negative feedbacks from the public, public institutions, professional associations, and labour unions. The recent pronouncement by the newly inaugurated administration of Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu as President elect of the Federal Republic has resulted to high prices of petrol and transportation fares all over the nation, even if it has not been fully implemented. It is based on this development that this study examined the benefits and challenges of fuel subsidy relapse on national economy. Descriptive analysis was adopted, and qualitative method of data collection was utilised to collect data for the study. Secondary sources of data, notably, books, journals, dailies, periodicals, and internet materials were utilized to obtain data. It was found out that several attempts by the previous administrations to reverse fuel subsidy policy have high negative effects on the citizens because prices of petroleum products, food items and transportation increases. The study recommends among others that the central government should pay special attention to the effects of the policy on the masses by providing palliatives to alleviate the sufferings of the people. In addition, government should provide steady electricity, regulate prices of goods and services, including transportation fare and provide adequate social amenities and infrastructures to cushion its effects on the citizens.
 Keywords: Subsidy, Fuel, Fuel subsidy, Subsidy Removal, Nigerian Economy, Regime, Benefits, Challenges.

On urban co-modality: Non-cooperative and cooperative games among freight forwarder, carrier and transit operator

This paper models a public transit system that can serve both passengers and urban freight, i.e., urban co-modality, and investigates the system-wide impacts of co-modality on existing urban freight forwarding service, freight carrier and urban transit services. In the co-modal system, we model one transit operator that serves passengers and provides co-modal services, one freight forwarder (an intermediary) that serves freight customers and uses freight transportation services provided by a freight carrier or the transit operator, and one freight carrier that provides services to the freight forwarder. We derive the analytical conditions under which co-modal operations can improve the profits of the freight forwarder, carrier and transit operator, and the consumer surpluses of freight customers and passengers compared with the status quo without co-modality. We also analytically and numerically compare the optimal operation decisions, the three operators’ profits, and the users’ welfare under different games among the operators (non-cooperative and cooperative games). Our results show that when the three operators are in a non-cooperative relationship, the freight carrier might have a profit loss due to the decreased freight units allocated to the direct road channel; whereas, both the freight forwarder and the transit operator would have profit gains from the co-modality. The numerical studies further reveal that to ensure a Pareto-improving co-modal system, the operators have to reduce the freight/transit service fare and co-modal transportation price.

The Impact of Migration of Road Freight Transport Services on Economic Indicators in Selected EU Countries

Transport is an industry that generates a significant portion of national income and directly or indirectly employs a large number of workers, while supporting the existence and development of all other sectors of the economy. Despite the long-standing goal of decoupling economic and transport growth in the European Union (EU), freight transport volumes, especially road freight transport, continue to increase. This leads to a deterioration of the quality of life and the environment, but on the other hand also creates business opportunities. The question is which country’s haulers will benefit the most. Using a shift-share analysis, the authors provide an overview of the dynamics of the EU road freight market and select countries for closer examination. They then examine the extent to which the road freight sector contributes to national income in these countries. Using a regression analysis, they estimate transport prices and changes in turnover and gross value added (GVA) for selected countries due to market structure change. The results show that the sector’s turnover increased by 4% due to market changes, sectoral GVA deviated only slightly, and there was a loss of at least 8 billion EUR in GVA due to the shortage of truck drivers.

An algorithm to determine the most suitable location to construct new commercial harbours

In the planning of a new harbour, much attention should be given to minimising the transportation time and cost during the lifetime of the harbour. An algorithm is proposed for determining the most suitable location for constructing new commercial harbours and ports. To determine the most suitable location for new harbours locally, a simplified simulation method is prepared for computing the characteristics of sea waves. In the proposed global model, the distribution of population, the transportation cost, the capacities of existing harbours and the demands for export/import cargos are employed as the main factors. In this model, an index called the total transportation price index (TTPI) is introduced. TTPI is calculated and examined for any potential location where the new harbour or port might be constructed. The proposed model has been validated by applying it to a case study for the conditions of several big commercial harbours of Iran’s Persian Gulf coastline. The case study indicates that the position of the port of Imam Khomeini is the most technically suitable; and that the Chahbahar port has the worst location for serving the entire country and should be limited to serving locally the nearby provinces.

Navigating the razor's edge: Public acceptance of climate policies and the case of transport pricing

Transport pricing (TP) can be a helpful policy instrument for climate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and foster sustainable mobility. Yet few cities have implemented TP. The main barriers include a lack of public and political acceptance, especially in regions with entrenched socio-technical systems and cultures of automobility. The dominance of automobility can be a reason for TP to be unacceptable to the public and politicians. Yet, policies for low-carbon mobility may ultimately fail if they are designed within automobility. This article considers this tension in transport-pricing policy design, as a subset of broader climate policies. How can public acceptance be secured for TP, both navigating within automobility to gain sufficient public uptake but also beyond automobility towards more transformative climate action? This paper examines the proposed TP policy for Vancouver, Canada. We summarize what has been found to support public and political acceptance of TP in other cities, and then particularly look at Oslo, Norway. Our findings suggest that TP policy-design that parts with an automobility regime—and rather is carried out within a low-carbon paradigm—may confront greater short-term challenges with public acceptance, but will better position such an innovative policy for success on the long-term.

An optimization model for the downstream supply chain network, considering consolidated warehouses and the selection of transportation mode

PurposeThe supply chain (SC) of the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector in India witnessed a significant change soon after introducing the Goods and Services Tax (GST). With the initiation of this tax, companies started moving from individual state-wise warehouses to consolidation warehouses model to save costs. This paper proposes a model that frames a mathematical formulation to optimize the distribution network in the downstream SC by considering the complexities of multi-product lines, multi-transport modes and consolidated warehouses.Design/methodology/approachThe model is designed as mixed-integer linear programming (MILP), and an algorithm is developed that works on the feedback loop mechanism. It optimizes the transportation and warehouses rental costs simultaneously with impact analysis.FindingsTotal cost is primarily influenced by the critical factor transportation price rather than the warehouse rent. The choice of warehouses at prime locations was a trade-off between a lower distribution cost and higher rent tariffs.Research limitations/implicationsThe study enables FMCG firms to plan their downstream SC efficiently and to be in line with the recent trend of consolidation of warehouses. The study will help SC managers solve complexities such as multi-product categories, truck selection and consolidation warehouse selection problems and find the optimum value for each.Originality/valueThe issues addressed in the proposed work are transporting products with different sizes and weights, selecting consolidated warehouses, selecting suitable vehicles for transportation and optimizing distance in the distribution network by considering consolidated warehouses.

Analysis of Factors Influencing the Volatility of Coal Industry Development Under the Double Carbon Policy

At present, the global carbon dioxide concentration is approaching the threshold, and the climate problem is more prominent than ever, which seriously threatens people's daily life. The value of coal is constrained by many aspects, including coal mine cost, international coal transportation price, macroeconomic policies of the world, global coal price, coal mine inventory, and the rising price of alternative resources, etc. This article focuses on the supply and demand situation and policy measures of the world coal industry to study the main reasons affecting the supply and demand situation and price changes of the world coal industry, and put forward relevant suggestions, in order to provide some reference and significance for the development of coal industry. This article focuses on the supply and demand situation of the world coal industry and the policy measures, and puts forward relevant suggestions, with a view to providing certain reference and significance for the development of the coal industry.

Modelling of Passenger Air Transportation Prices

The pricing policy of airlines is developed based on a retrospective analysis of the price dynamics of air transportation and forecasting the market situation of supply and demand. The price dynamics of passenger air transportation has a certain structure and patterns, the identification of which helps to develop a competitive price offer for consumers.The objective of the work is to determine the structure of price dynamics and identify patterns of price fluctuations in passenger air transportation from 2008 to 2022, which is important to consider when developing the pricing policy of airlines and the range of tariffs. Studies of the price dynamics of airline tickets by econometric methods allowed to identify the structure of the time series of prices and develop several models.The study of the price dynamics structure, first, identified and analysed the seasonal component of the dynamics of airline ticket prices. Its calculation was carried out using additive and multiplicative models. The range of seasonal changes was -8,5% to +12,5%. The autocorrelation function of the dynamics of average monthly prices showed that the time series of airline ticket prices contained a trend. In addition to trend and seasonal components, cyclical fluctuations were identified in the price dynamics, the modelling of which was carried out based on regression analysis. Cyclical changes in the dynamics of air ticket prices, identified from 2008 to the present, are not sustainable.Analysed dynamics revealed several medium-term cycles with a duration of 4–6 years. The cyclical dynamics of air transportation prices largely coincides with the general economic medium-term cycles, but there are time lags or lagging growth and decline rates.Thus, the change in prices for civil air transportation has a natural trend-cyclical character shaped under the influence of fundamental macroeconomic factors and new determinants, the effect of which may result in a stronger change but with shorter impact or lag effect. Additive and multiplicative models will help predict average annual prices.

A two-stage optimization model for road-rail transshipment procurement and truckload synergetic routing

Road-rail multimodal transport has increasing importance in modern cargo transport. This paper presents a novel two-stage model for optimizing auction game strategy and route in container road-rail transshipment. Two critical questions are investigated in the two stages, respectively: (a) In the first stage, what is the best pricing strategy for either large-scale or small-scale carriers in a stochastic bid generation problem? (b) In the second stage, what are the best routes of the container trucks to minimize the total expected profit of the carrier according to its pricing strategy? To deal with the first stage problem, this paper presents an evolutionary game model to capture the long-term strategic behaviors of the carriers and to optimize the choice between historical pricing strategy and combinatorial strategy for each carrier. The equilibrium points of the evolutionary game model and Evolutionary Stability Strategy are derived and discussed. In the second stage, a fleet management problem is presented to determine the routing of the trucks over the whole temporal horizon regarding the transportation price. An A*-based search heuristic is proposed to find the satisfying solution to this difficult problem. To show the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed method, numerical studies are conducted. The results show that (a) The optimized pricing strategy is impacted by the expected profit rate, the correlation coefficient between different transport ation enterprise carriers, and the probability of winning bids. The equilibrium point of the ordering bidding system depends on whether these critical input parameters exceed a threshold. (b) In the fleet management and route optimization stage, the small-scale carrier has gained about 11.42% more profits than the large-scale carrier.

Greenhouse gas emission budgets and policies for zero-Carbon road transport in Europe

ABSTRACT Following the Paris Agreement, virtually all countries worldwide have committed themselves to undertaking efforts to limit global warming to 1.5 °C. Within the European Union (EU), the recent ‘Fit for 55’ policy package proposes ambitious greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation policies for all sectors as part of the EU's contribution to limiting global warming. Yet, it is unclear whether the proposed policies are sufficient for the EU to limit global warming to 1.5 °C and it remains an open policy problem how to translate global temperature targets into sector-specific emission budgets and further into sector-specific policies. Here, we derive GHG budgets for transport in EU27 and obtain GHG mitigation pathways for Europe consistent with 1.5 °C global warming. We do not provide a comprehensive assessment of the ‘Fit for 55’ transport package but we discuss the main policies for road transport in light of the GHG emission budgets, their level of ambition, and suggest amendments to these policies as well as improvements to the ‘Fit for 55’ package. Our results suggest that parts of the ‘Fit for 55’ for transport are still not ambitious enough to align with a 1.5 °C scenario. Key policy insights A Paris-compatible residual carbon budget for EU transport is 10–12 Gt CO2. The budget implies net zero emissions for EU transport by 2044–2048 latest. We find the current ‘Fit for 55’ proposal for transport is not ambitious enough. A faster phase-out of cars and trucks with combustion engines is required and there is a need for ambitious standards for fast charging e-vehicles. CO2 pricing of transport is not a substitute but a complement to fleet targets.

Optimal selection of sustainable battery supplier for electric vehicle battery swapping station

ABSTRACT The problems faced in the electric vehicle (EV) charging station like time consumption and limited space can be overcome by battery swapping station (BSS), which not only saves time but also reduces the range anxiety problem among the users of EV. Batteries are the backbone of EV as it is power supply and essential to run the vehicle. Total price of EV has a good share in the form of battery, thus impacting a lot in the EV industry. Therefore, this paper presents a methodology for the selection of a sustainable battery supplier for BSS using fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making method. Firstly, four main criteria segregated into 12 supplementary criteria are identified considering several requirements for BSS. To cope with the uncertainty in the decision-making process, triangular fuzzy number (TFN) has been implemented. The TFNs give the relative weights among the considered criterion, and to make this framework more customer-centric, quality function deployment (QFD) is implemented, leading to final weights of the criteria. The obtained results give the hierarchy of the criteria, and top five weights after implementing the QFD methodology are as follows: battery price (0.2313), innovation ability (0.2188), safety assurance (0.12135), financial condition (0.1119), and cost of transportation (0.066). Subsequently, integrating fuzzy with complex-proportional assessment of alternatives (COPRAS) leads to rank the alternatives. As a case study, Kolkata city of India is chosen to demonstrate a viable selection. It was found that supplier based on Kolkata Municipal Corporation is the topmost priority, followed by North 24 Parganas, eastern part of Howrah, and South 24 Parganas, with the relative significance value of 0.3305, 0.2575, 0.2540, and 0.1578, respectively. This paper reveals an approach to the stakeholders for accessing the sustainable battery supplier of BSS choosing the most significant one.

Consolidated Transport Service Pricing in Supply Hub in Industrial Park (SHIP) With Heterogeneous Manufacturers

There is a growing number of industrial parks implementing supply hubs to provide shared logistics services for member manufacturers. Products from manufacturers could be temporarily stored at the supply hub in industrial park (SHIP), and consolidated into one or more vehicles to be delivered to their retail distribution centers. This article discusses how SHIP and heterogeneous manufacturers interact to optimize their decisions on consolidated transportation service pricing and consolidation schedules. An all-unit multiple-breakpoint quantity discount pricing scheme is adopted. This problem is modeled as a bilevel program where the SHIP is treated as the leader and manufacturers as followers. Optimal properties of the proposed model are analyzed and the global optimal solution is derived. Numerical studies are conducted to examine the effectiveness of this pricing scheme through comparing with the regular transportation price under various circumstances. The results show that the SHIP operator could always increase profit by using this pricing scheme, while manufacturers’ performances are not affected. Among heterogeneous manufacturers with various production capabilities and resources, the SHIP could gain the largest profit increase through adopting quantity discount pricing from medium-sized manufacturers.