Urban Transport Industry Research Articles

Does the new energy vehicles subsidy policy decrease the carbon emissions of the urban transport industry? Evidence from Chinese cities in Yangtze River Delta

New energy vehicles (NEV) have become an important driving force for carbon reduction in the transportation industry. This paper adopts the extended environmental pressure assessment (STIRPAT) model and the time-varying difference in differences (DID) model to evaluate the effectiveness of the NEV subsidy policy to achieve sustainable governance. The results show that the NEV subsidy policy can significantly decrease the carbon emission of the transport industry. The mechanism analysis results indicate that the NEV subsidy policy can decrease carbon emissions by promoting a green transformation of the consumer car purchasing structure. Further analysis found that a “fraudulent subsidy” can significantly weaken the policy effect of subsidies. The results of heterogeneity analysis indicate that the subsidy policies introduced by different levels of government have different effects. The subsidy policy of the central government has a more significant effect, and repeated subsidies from central and local governments will weaken the policy's effectiveness. These findings provide valuable insights for policymakers in developing countries to optimize subsidies for new energy vehicles in reducing carbon emissions in the transportation industry.

Electric Shared Mobility Services during the Pandemic: Modeling Aspects of Transportation

The global spread of the COVID-19 virus has led to difficulties in many branches of the economy, including significant effects on the urban transport industry. Thus, countries around the world have introduced different mobility policies during the pandemic. Due to government restrictions and the changed behaviors of transport users, companies providing modern urban mobility solutions were forced to introduce new business practices to their services. These practices are also apparent in the context of the electric shared mobility industry. Although many aspects and problems of electric shared mobility have been addressed in scientific research, pandemic scenarios have not been taken into account. Noticing this research gap, we aimed to update a previously developed model of factors that influence the operation of electric shared mobility by incorporating aspects related to the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on this industry. This article aims to identify the main factors influencing the electric shared mobility industry during the COVID-19 and post-lockdown periods, together with their operation areas and the involved stakeholders. The research was carried out on the basis of expert interviews, social network analysis (SNA), and the use of the R environment. The article also presents sustainable transport management recommendations for cities and transport service operators, which can be implemented after a lockdown caused by an epidemic. The results in this paper can be used to support transport modeling and the creation of new policies, business models, and sustainable development recommendations. The contents will also be helpful to researchers worldwide in preparing literature reviews for articles related to sustainable management in the COVID-19 pandemic reality.

Merger Guidelines for Bidding Markets

Nous proposons un test simple qui détermine si une fusion entre entreprises devrait ou non être autorisée dans une industrie qui sélectionne les candidats à l’exploitation par des appels d’offres. Ce test est appliqué dans le cas particulier de l’industrie du transport urbain en France. Il élabore l’enchère optimale et tient compte de deux effets antagonistes : d’une part, la fusion est préjudiciable, car elle entraîne une perte de concurrence ; d’autre part, les gains d’efficacité potentiels jouent en faveur des entreprises qui fusionnent. Les deux effets peuvent être incorporés dans une unique condition qui détermine si la fusion permet d’améliorer le surplus net du consommateur. Nos résultats suggèrent que la fusion entre Transdev and Veolia améliore le surplus net du consommateur si les gains d’efficacité issus de la fusion permettent aux deux entreprises de diminuer leur inefficacité en termes de coûts d’au moins 17,9 % et 17,8 % respectivement. JEL Codes: L51, C51, L92.

Design of Regulatory Contracts – Example of the Urban Transport Industry

The present article discusses economic issues related to the design of optimal regulatory contracts on the example of the urban public transport industry. It highlights the importance of the design of efficient regulatory contracts in the context of changes facing the urban transportation industry in the European Union. Furthermore, it provides an overview of the main issues put forward in economic literature related to the design of regulatory contracts. It discusses several problems relevant in this context such as informational asymmetries, transaction costs, and regulatory capture. It also comments on a selection of views presented in economic literature dealing with these issues. Finally, the article presents the regulatory framework, contractual practices and characteristics of the French urban public transport industry. France is well known for its long standing tradition of contracting between the State and the private sector in transportation. The analysis of the French example may help to prove useful insights in this regard.

Análisis de las empresas concesionarias del servicio público de transporte urbano colectivo en España (2008-2010)

Since mobility is a basic need in today's society, the final aim of this work is to analyze the main features of the companies that conform the Spanish urban transport industry. With this purpose in mind we will analyze the main characteristics of the industry in the period 2008-2010 putting special emphasis in the study and evolution of the principal financial accounting statements.

Incentive Regulatory Policies: The Case of Public Transit Systems in France

We assess the empirical relevance of the new theory of regulation, using a principal-agent framework to study the regulatory schemes used in the French urban transport industry. Taking the current regulatory schemes as given, the model of supply and demand provides estimates for the firms’ inefficiency, the effort of managers, and the cost of public funds. It allows us to derive the first-best and second-best regulatory policies for each network and compare them with the actual situation in terms of welfare loss or gain. Fixed-price policies lie between fully informed and uninformed second-best schemes. Cost-plus contracts are dominated by any type of second-best contract. From these results, we may conjecture that fixed-price contracts call for better-informed regulators.