The Transporati

Streetfilm.org: San Francisco Park(ing) Day 2009

beconomist@gmail.com (Bao-Wen Chen) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:49:00 +0000

"...just because we are not on vehicles doesn't mean we don't have the right to use parking spaces."

This is extraordinarily hilarious and inspirational. It's true that for long non-driving road users have assumed that parking spaces belong only to drivers. In Japan there are not so many street parking spaces, it might not work in the way it does in the U.S. But I am really looking forward to seeing it in Taipei, where street parking is a battlefield, and very often bicyclists move humbly along the side only to have car drivers abruptly pull over and lead to clashes.

LRT @ Phoenix

beconomist@gmail.com (Bao-Wen Chen) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:47:00 +0000

source: sreetfilms.org

Everyone knows that Phoenix has a huge sprawl problem. But now transit-oriented development is on the upswing in this Sun Belt metropolis. In December, the Phoenix region opened one of the most ambitious transit projects in recent U.S. history: a 20-mile light rail line with 28 stops serving three cities (Phoenix, Tempe, and Mesa). Future plans include an extension within three years, with several new corridors being studied.

The Valley Metro vehicles are handsome and comfortable, and thus far ridership has far exceeded initial projections -- with as many as 40,000 riders per day, compared to the expected 25,000. Each station features amenities and art installations. In addition, with many folks using the light rail as an intermodal step in their commutes, bicycles are welcome aboard.

Being handsome and comfortable is what differentiates LRT from BRT, and that's also why LRT tends to attracts way more motorists than BRT. In terms of pullution, be it dust, air quality, noise, water runoff, or vibration, LRT's performance is much better. It's possible to make the performance of BRT as close as to LRT, but the biggest advantage of BRT (cheap, cost-effective) will no longer hold. However, that LRT is around 3 times more expensive makes the option not available for a lot of countries or cities in the world.

LRT is fixed, due to its rail-based nature. Therefore, related facilities such as park-and-ride and bicycle carriage service become important to help people complete their trip (point-to-point) more smoothly. BRT is flexible and fast to go into operation, but local people also tend to think that is not as reliable and stable as LRT, which can play a critical role in people's mode choice and location choice.

Nevertheless, comparing two totally different transportation systems is not fair. From my point of view, given a rapidly growing medium-sized city, BRT would be a temporary means by which LRT will be introduced once the level of local economic development and environmental awareness raises over the tipping point.

Research (1): from Supply-side to Demand-side Approach, from Economic Incentive to Social Incentive

beconomist@gmail.com (Bao-Wen Chen) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:10:00 +0000

Today, we are standing at a point of opportunity where we can really make a difference, or we let it go by. After several decades of focusing solely on economic development and enterprise competition, we've ignored the fundamental of life - the most precious and invaluable resources - the Mother Nature. On the other hand, during just about the same period, technological progress has become unprecedentedly powerful in its nature, and also social in its ability to make each other interconnected.

One of the biggest challenges, global warming, by its nature, is such a comprehensive crisis and risk that people on this planet will need to work out a bunch of solutions collaboratively or they will suffer from the irreversible catastrophe together. However, looking at today's government policies aimed to address this issue in the post Kyoto Protocol era, cooperation has been high on the agenda, but at a level so high that people consider it the government's job. What governments around the world are good at (and they are supposed to be, since basically those are quasi-monopoly businesses), is the supply management of all sorts of public services, transportation, energy, sewer and water and so on. As a result, the progress of emission reduction has been disappointing.

The focus has yet come to the ordinary people whose collective effort once reaches the tipping point could really make a shard difference in the situation. At this micro-level, most of the green innovation and creative programs have been initiated chiefly by private sectors and NGOs.

Regarding transportation, yes, there are a variety of transportation demand management (TDM) measures such as congestion pricing, toll road, and others urging people to change travel mode by means of economic incentive. Although, if well-schemed, it will definitely show positive effect on environment and congestion, this kind of economic-incentive-based measures is not tackling the problem directly, and it's often politically implausible. In other words, people are forced to change to green mode because of economic penalty. Drivers whose mode remains unchanged are subject to the structural change

TDM Measures by Incentive Types

The thing that is really in need of change is the environmental and social awareness. The former explains the physical capacity of the environment and the latter represents the fact that not only welfare, but also misery of each individual is interconnected.

There comes the idea of mobility management, defined by EPOMM (European Platform on Mobility Management)

Mobility Management (MM) is a concept to promote sustainable transport and manage the demand for car use by changing travellers's attitudes and behaviour. At the core of Mobility Management are soft measures like information and communication, organising services and coordinating activities of different partners. Soft measures most often enhance the effectiveness of hard measures within urban transport (e.g., new tram lines, new roads and new bike lanes). Mobility Management measures (in comparison to hard measures) do not necessarily require large financial investments and may have a high benefit-cost ratio.

In other words, Mobility Management resorts to the real problem of the crisis. As the strategy changed from economic incentive (people don't want to get fined)to moral incentive (people don't want to do something they consider wrong), related policies also started focusing on the building of awareness, such as marketing campaigns, car-pooling, par-and-ride, and so on. Those measures are more encouraging than forcing; that is, drivers whose mode remains unchanged are not affected. Most of the measures and programs involve in some sorts of information exchange and interaction between travelers and service providers.

However, because the choice of social dilemma between public transportation and private vehicles is the fundamental source of emission of transportation sector, I argue that social collaboration is the key to the crisis. At the micro-level, one by one, inch by inch, social collaboration (therefore pro-social behavior) is to be built via the help of technology.

(to be continued..)

IBM opens Global Rail Innovation Center in Bejing

beconomist@gmail.com (Bao-Wen Chen) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 06:39:00 +0000

IBM opened its Global Rail Innovation Center in Beijing which is expected to bring indistry experts, academic researchers, and also officials together to improve and design the 21st century railway system. Here is what it will be doing,

The kinds of things we’ll work on are advanced data analytics for scheduling and predictive maintenance, cell phone enabled passenger service, wireless sensors on bearings and axles, digital video systems that ensure a clear track ahead and automatically respond to danger — to create rail systems that will support economic vitality, improved quality of life through reduced road congestion, and environmental sustainability.

F** This!

beconomist@gmail.com (Bao-Wen Chen) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 06:32:00 +0000

I ran into F** This!, a site that allows citizens to report any dissatisfaction about infrastructure in New York. The provider's job is to automatically notified related authorities to see if things will get improved. As this,

In the land of F** This! you are granted many wonderful powers. You can become a guardian of public infrastructure. You can keep your city working smoothly. You can post pictures of busted crap–partially disassembled escalators in subway stations, cavernous potholes, permanently dark street lights–and trade snide and insightful comments with your wonderful new F** This! cyberfriends (why can’t your real life friends be this cool?). At the same time, while you’re busy enjoying yourself, we’ll see to it that the appropriate public officials get notified and the problem you identified gets dealt with. Or, if said officials prove useless in fixing the busted stuff, we’ll see to it that they endure at least some small measure of public humiliation. It’ll be fun!

Using technology (mainly web and GIS) is the area I will be working on during the rest of my research.(or maybe not?)

I hope to share more things latter!

CIVITAS Project - What is Really Important in Changing People's Behavior

beconomist@gmail.com (Bao-Wen Chen) — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 08:45:00 +0000

The Eorupean Commission (EC) has launched a project, called CIVITAS - cleaner and better transport in cities, which stands for CIty-VITAlity-Sustainability.

"With the CIVITAS Initiative, the EC aims to generate a decisive breakthrough by supporting and evaluating the implementation of ambitious integrated sustainable urban transport strategies that should make a real difference for the welfare of the European citizen."

Introduction
Started in 2002 (CIVITAS I) and reframed in 2005 (CITIVITAS II), the project now is in its third phase - CITIVAS Plus - where 25 cities in 5 demonstration projects funded by the EC are carrying out. Some of the key elements are outlined in the introduction. First, it is co-ordinated by local cities, meaning it is not another fastidious but inept plan cared only by those who have schemed it. Second, cities are in the heart of local public private partnerships. This is clearly an important point in the development of proper policies and plans. When the idea of city as the final outcome is not in the center of the partnership, it is not difficult to find that all relevant public units are eager to take credits while the private simply want to make more profits and build their own reputation. Third, political commitment is a basic requirement. Any kind of planning profession's first duty is to study the backgrounds, crunch the numbers, and generate a report of high quantitative and qualitative quality. The second duty deserves an equal strenuous attention. That is; planners need to convey and communicate ideas effectively with the policy-makers without whose commitment the projects are not likely to be politically viable. Last but not least, cities are by nature living 'Laboratories' for learning and evaluating. A complete list of measures and rich introductory information is here.

What is Important - Information Transparency on The Street
Among the many measures in the projects, I am interested in the transparency of transport information the most. There are at least three points explaining the importance of information transparency.

If properly provided, information accessibility can well improve transit users' physical accessibility
First of all, the access to traveler information should not be proprietary to motorists. The traditional imbalance of information accessibility and innovation between motorist and transit user groups marks the inappropriate distribution of right of ways and the differences between the two groups' social-economic characteristics in that mass transits are usually considered as a public service and their users are often viewed as owning less consumption power while motorists are by definition more willing to purchase something in exchange for their own convenience and comfortableness. However legitimate the reason could be, transport planners' job is to narrow down the information gap if we are to promote multimodal accessibility and boost the use of public transport. As a result, a cleverly-devised business partnership of public transport services between public units and private innovators is necessary to compensate that inherent differences. In short, If properly provided, information accessibility can well improve transit users' physical accessibility.

Personally, they simply don't know how bad their choice is, and how good their change is going to be
Next, the idea of bike counter on the street makes me impressed. Not only because it can collect the accumulated number of bikes passed and display it right on the street. What is really important here is that, by connecting an individual's green choice to the others' choices and by making explicit how well or how worse the local people are contributing to the area, environmental awareness is effectively created. In other words, traditionally one of the disincentives that people are unaware of or insensitive to the externalities they are creating when using private vehicles is the lack of information about their choices. All kinds of research and report are right there, compelling, but those researches lack the direct connection with the ordinary people. Personally, they simply don't know how bad their choice is, and how good their change is going to be. Without the direct connection to personal choice, the thing each individual will do is to wait for other people's change. There are many things we can count and inform the public, including the number of vehicles and accidents, the amount of emissions, historical comparative results or goal and vision set by local people. I've seen some emission calculators on the Net, but so far they still operate in a very passive way and people just cannot connect the result with their choice. Therefore, in some areas where the percentage of private vehicle is extremely high, I envision more transparency of information on the street, public one is preferred because it can create more sense of cohesion and cooperation. Those already established on the Net might want to make further advancement by some physical presence on the street.

Marketing is important
The third one is creative and communicatively effective. In some of the projects, some local authorities put telescopes on the streets inside which people can see the future of the street, the town, or even the city. Marketing is important. It is a tool to get people involved and informed by telling them that with their help and understanding, the beautiful and sustainable future is right there waiting. It is much more effective and innovative than if the vision is only available on the Internet or some pamphlets.

Small Talk
In managing transportation demand, soft measures should be considered a priority since it can create the real sense of awareness we need for sustainable development. However, hard measures, such as congestion pricing, is necessary and justifiable for that it's the most appropriate funding sources for either maintaining existing road network or potential public transport projects. The logic is that for a long time, the real cost of driving has been significantly underestimated.

In America, cities are changing

beconomist@gmail.com (Bao-Wen Chen) — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 00:05:00 +0000

In a time of depression, the timing couldn't be better for us to rethink our past deeds and replan for our future. We shall not only rethink the solutions for our economy, while ignore what lies in the heart of humanity: our streets, neighborhoods, and as a result, our lives.

Streetfilms has made two short videos regarding recent development of livable street in San Francisco and New York. Let's enjoy them with zeal!

Transforming NYC Streets: A Conversation with Janette Sadik-Khan

Making a Better Market Street

Mode Choice Considering Social Interdependence - A Potential for Making Behavioral Changes

beconomist@gmail.com (Bao-Wen Chen) — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 11:11:00 +0000

Human behavior impinges on transportation systems at many points.

by Daniel McFadden, 2007

When I was 8 years old, a neighbor was promoted to conductor on the Southern Railroad. I ask him if he would be working on the Southern Crescent, the premier passenger train on the railroad. "Oh, no,"he said, "If I did that, I would have to deal with people. Railroad men would rather work with freight." Today, it is important for transportation workers, and transportation researchers, to recognize that there is no escape from humans and the impact of their behavior on transportation systems. One has to work with people

by Nobel Laureate, Prof. Daniel McFadden, 2007, The behaviroal science of transportation, Transport Policy

Yes, one has to deal with men, such as drivers, riders, pedestrians, managers, or policy-makers, to name just a few. And one has also need to know clearly the interests, preferences, and behaviors that underlie each group of the stakeholders in a hope for a competent management of transportation system.

Zones don't travel; people travel!"

A slogan by Travel Demand Project, 1972

The following paragraphs excerpted from my research proposal, in which I plan to study current theoretical grounds and rethink some of the ideas on which travel mode choice behavior is determined through putting into more behavioral economic/behavioral science principles. Generally speaking, the focus of the economics discipline is on the aggregation of market, be it financial market, labor market, or transportation market, and by understanding the casual relationships between dependent variables and independent variables, policy-makers are supposedly able to manage the market of interest.

Nevertheless, in terms of choice making, there are much more than utility and budget constraint. A lot of brilliant researches and studies have contributed to this argument (as will be seen later). Whether this argument holds depends on what sort of belief and function we adhere to the study of economics. But I would like to supplement the necessity of studying behavioral economics/behavioral science with another important reason: simply speaking, from the view point of a policy-maker, gaining other factors that are potential for changing people's behavior toward a more ideal one (in my field, environmentally-friendly transportation mode) is by all means worthy of a perusal. After all, not until we have a more penetrating insight into the ever more complex mechanism of people's decision making process can we ever start creating green shifts in a world facing critical climate crisis and the side effects of urbanization all along.

BACKGROUND & MOTIVATION
Traveling around Taipei City during rush hours by all kinds of means is increasingly exasperating because of the totally congested roads and desperately bad air quality, both of which are resulted from a high percentage of private vehicle using in commuting trips and the operational inefficiency of public transit systems.

While Taipei City Government’s focus is to rapidly increase transit capacity by expanding subway coverage and reconfiguring bus network in search for a cleaner and less crowded network, some other important factors central to people’s mode choice decision-making process might be overlooked and might thus deserve a thorough investigation.

On the other hand, from a citizen’s point of view, if the government has already been carrying out a variety of transportation demand management (TDM) measures, some reviews and evaluations about what those measures are and how they are performing might also provide opportunities for further advancement.

PROBLEM DEFINITION AND OBJECTIVES
Motivated by Taipei City’s transportation issues, I desire to study travel mode choice behavior and learn how to bring about psychological and behavioral green changes in people facing mode choice decision, specifically, through social interdependence or social interaction, without which TDM measures could often process too slowly or are simply impractical.
Therefore, the objective of this research is to provide a sound basis on which transportation decision makers would be better positioned when considering counteractions to urban congestion and pollution through making the green shift in people’s mode choice.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Social Dilemma
In one way or another, the climate crisis has begun affecting people’s behavior and life patterns and linking not only each individual’s welfare, but also misery. In terms of mode choice decision, out-of-pocket cost or immediate convenience still counts but is increasingly facing more complex variables (Ben-Akiva et al., 1999). In urban transportation field, mode choice is one of the decisions people need to make in the traveling process. The choice itself and utility that follows are interconnected (through externalities, such as congestion and pollution) with other people’s decision. The social interdependence with conflicting individual and collective interests is known as a social dilemma.
There are a number of studies discussing about the effect of social dilemma and how to trigger it for more effective TDM measures. Some researches address this issue from the demand-side, usually via segmenting travelers by some latent characteristics, such as pro-social or pro-self commuters, with the former group showing greater preference for public transportation (also called cooperative option) (Sutomo, Sugiyanto, Istiyanto, & Matsumoto, 2003; VanVugt, VanLange, & Meertens, 1996). The other studies deal with it from a supply-side perspective, usually by manipulating operational variables such as price and route availability. For example, an experiment in which ecological norm and free bus ticket were adopted argued that the “economy-plus-moral” formula best explains the fact that integrative mechanism is the determinant of travel mode choice (Fujii, Garling, & Kitamura, 2001; Hunecke, Blobaum, Matthies, & Hoger, 2001). And there are even more researches suggesting a high possibility that contextual changes could trigger behavioral change which favors cooperative options (Fujii et al., 2001; Fujii & Kitamura, 2003; Klöckner, 2004). Thus, regarding making behavioral change, a lot of attention has been given to the individual and operational sides.

Social Interdependence or Social Interaction
The effect of social interdependence in discrete choice model is allowed by allowing a given individual’s choice for a particular alternative to be dependent on the others’ choice, forming a feedback between decision makers. So far, the study focus of social interactions among individual decision makers has been mostly directed toward intra-household activities (Wilton, Páez, & Scott, 2007). In other fields, some researchers start using discrete choice analyses with social interaction, centering on how social interaction will change individual choice (Soetevent & Kooreman, 2007; Zanella, 2007). Up to the present, the use of social interdependence or social interaction in influencing individual’s mode choice toward a greener one has received much less attention, while at the same time analytical models have become relatively more able to include latent variables and interdependences (social and spatial) (Dugundji & Walker, 2005; McFadden et al., 2002). Therefore, I plan to study on the development of mechanical linkages and relationship among individual choice, the other people’s choices, individual utility, and collective utility. I believe if the linkages and relationship can be more explicitly identified in mode choice behavior, transportation planners and decision makers are likely to have a clearer view with which more effective TDM measures will be possible.

METHODOLOGY
First of all, the research plans to review literature in the historical development of behavioral studies in mode choice, related statistical and economic methods, and Taipei City’s current mode choice behavior; see Figure 2. Second, it intends to conduct an experimental investigation into mode choice behavior of people living in Taipei City taking into account the effect of social interdependence. Third, it will examine the applicability and practicability of existing mode choice models and theories and apply one of them. Fourth, based on previous steps, the research hopes to provide some new findings about mode choice behavior considering the effect of social interdependence.

Small Talk
Just about the same time, I am lucky enough to come across Prof. McFadden's paper (2007) in which he has highlighted the importance of understanding the phenomenon of pellatons (and a great deal of other things), which suggests people's tendency to get affiliated with social networks and to become willing to limit their choice voluntarily by accountability to network norms. It happens to be closely related to my subject. Thinking about the reasons that drive the desires of policy to make people's behavioral change in travel mode might suggest a somewhat cynical view toward the world. Although believing in the implication of Malthusian Catastrophe may seem pessimistic, however, it is those pessimistic views that complement and strengthen our civilization.

Behavoral Economics: The Gounds

beconomist@gmail.com (Bao-Wen Chen) — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 05:43:00 +0000

Economists have preferences; psychologists have attitudes."

by Daniel Kahneman, 1998

Recently, to better understand how people make mode choice in search for a more effective and efficient counteraction against congestion and polllution, I've read a deal of articles about behaviors and found some interesting issues and arguments between economists and psychologists (one of the best is here, the University of Chicago Magazine). One of the most famous points in the arguments (Nobel Laureate Prof. Daniel Kah neman's well-quoted and classical paper, pros pect theor y), is that, however, human beings are not fully rational beings. When under uncertainty they make decision according to how they feel their wealth or state is going to change by it, and they choose it based on whether it is being considered as a gain or loss. I am so glad that I am able to indulge in those great works done by some of the most insightful and intelligent social scientists, economists, and psychologists. While it seems that prospect theory and other behavioral thoughts are against traditional economic maxims (people are able to make the best decision out from a number of choices which turn out to maximize their utility), I am viewing it as a valuable supplement to what constitutes human beings' decision making mechanism.

In my heart of hearts, I am convinced by yet another dedicated Nobel Laureate Herbert Simon (who coined the term "bounded rationality"). He noted in the New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Simon argued that “the phrase ‘behavioral economics’ appears to be a pleonasm,” or redundancy: “What non-behavioral economics can we contrast it with? The answer to this question is found in the specific assumptions about human behavior that are made in neoclassical economic theory.” I also see no difference between the two. In the fundamentals of microeconomic theory, people choose the best bundle of goods they can afford. This is, of course, an obvious psychological assumption about people's decision-making process. In 2005, another absolutely must-read paper reviewing another less known book by Father of Economics - Adam Smith - The Theory of Moral Sentiments, has suggested that the book, which was written 17 years earlier before The Wealth of Nations, presaged many developments in behaviroal economics we are seeing today. In the classical book, Smith gave many bone-chilling examples about how human beings act. For instance,

What are the pangs of a mother, when she hears the moanings of her infant, that, during the agony of disease, cannot express what it feels? In her idea of what it suffers, she joins, to its real helplessness, her own consciousness of that helplessness, and her own terrors for the unknown consequences of its disorder; and out of all these, forms, for her own sorrow, the most complete image of misery and distress. The infant, however, feels only the uneasiness of the present instant, which can never be great.

The authors of the review paper (Ashraf et al.) has suggested that, "Smith adds dryly that 'we sympathize even with the dead', who themselves experience nothing." It is absolutely a careful and original observation of people's behavior. Given Adam Smith's less prevalent part of wisdom, Prof. Camerer, the other authors of the review paper suggested that the recent fashion of behavioral economics is in fact, a “return to the roots of neoclassical economics after a century-long detour.”

In some cases, the behavioral side tends to suggest that limiting people's choice set especially when they are not well-informed or motivated could be a better policy direction (not by government intervention, but by some smart people who can design the BEST solution for all individuals). From my point of view, however, better solution shouldn't be defined by a relatively-small group of smart people and I believe it won't always do good things for people. The real question here is, therefore, what kind of choice are we talking about? If it's a decision involved no collective or social impact, then maybe it'd better not to limit people's choice simply because economists and scholars think they will make silly decisions. On the other hand, if it's a decision associated with significant externalities, in which situation not only each individual's welfare, but also misery are interconnected, then some form of libertarian paternalism will be much more legitimate and reasonable.

ATIS, and what can we do more with it?

beconomist@gmail.com (Bao-Wen Chen) — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 03:52:00 +0000

by DG Jones

Empowered by information and communication technologies, people who use different modes of travel with different characteristics can now have more access to information services and make use of a wide range of traveler information while pre-trip, on the move, and post-trip. In academic studies, it has also been widely accepted that traveler information about travel opportunities, location and network, differences of travel costs between modes and level of service plays an important role in influencing people’s travel decisions, such as time choices, mode choices, route choices, and location choices (Koppelman and Pas, 1980).

Information's role in support travel decision

Gathering, organizing, and absorbing information about transportation network options and performance is complicated by the intrinsic spatial and temporal dimensions of such information. Human knowledge of the spatial environment (cognitive map), is usually based on a limited mental representation of route locations and the physical environment. It influences travel behavior in a significant way. For example, the propensity to divert or change route in the face of congestion is related to the number of routes known to a person (Khattak, 1991).

Information about travel decision can be acquired actively, such as by reading a map, asking people, or listening to broadcast, or it can also be developed passively, such as through experiencing in person. The acquired information, along with existing, stored knowledge, is used to make both long-term (auto purchase) and short-term (departure time, mode choice, and route choice) choices. For instance, over a longer term, a repetitive news of rising oil price and environmental concern could have a latent effect of convincing travelers of using more public transportation system and giving up auto use.

How is the precious information delivered to travelers?

There are many ways traveler information can be delivered to users. Traditionally, private car users can use emergency call boxes othe roadside to get themselves posted while transit users can access kiosks to get update. More recently, smart bus stop, dynamic message signs (DMS), In-Vehicle Information Systems, personal portable devices, and the Internet, have shown great potential for delivering information of high quality.

Personally, I'd like to focus on the options of personal portable devices and internet.
Having been studying advanced traveler information systems (ATIS) for months, I've seen a great deal amount of practices and examples that are quite worthy of a detailed examination. Among them, some are really handy in terms of user interface and concise manipulation (like google transit), some cover a more comprehensive set of travel-related information (like hopstop), and the others have specific focus regarding mode of choice or fare calculation (like district taxi fare estimator or NYC Bike Maps ). There are a lot more out there. Even though the nature of data combination in each area is highly localized (depending on transportation modes available), but the technology and management of the traveler information could be quite similar .

Some possibilities of ATIS

With the advent of GPS and other positioning technology, context-ware services could creat a basket of new tools that could futher improve travel experience and make transport planning more timely and effective.

Self-examination of Travel Behavior
Associated Press reporter Anick Jesdanuna noted in a review that "It was through HopStop that I learned I've been taking a roundabout way to New York's Kennedy airport all these years. The site also offers cab options - though I use it primarily to gauge how much money I save by using public transit." Through a more objective planning agent, people now can learn a better way of traveling which in turn will enhance their travel performance and save their time and/or money. Once it learns the user's value of time and money in advance, context-ware ATIS can be involved to provide a more smart and well-calculated recommendation.

Climate Crisis Counteraction
Transportation demand management (TDM) measures for environment such as park and ride participation and carpooling have been discussed. Nonetheless, the effectiveness of those measures heavily rests on the underlying environmental awareness that tells travelers to make such a change (Jones, 2003). Therefore, instead of waiting for the change, it might be more promising to actively arouse the awareness. ATIS can be an agent through which users will be informed of their emissions via different modes of travel. This application, along with the first, can also be called Traffic Feedback Program.

Service Ranking
The idea is to make more competitive the usually incompetent and sluggish transit industry or irregular qualities of services in taxi industry by making users' voice more powerful and visible. In terms of taxi in dustry, the operators or companies that rank low or way below standard will never be shown on the search result when users are checking available choice. In the transit part, where there might be only one or limited public operator, ranking among different lines, varied time period, and drivers could also have a positive effect.

Feedback Collection
From a planner's point of view, if an incentive mechanism is cleverly devised, context-aware ATIS can request feedback from a user right after the user check a piece of information about a specific route and mode. Depending on the degree of context-awareness, ATIS might also be able to know wehther it's commute trip or noncommute trip, or it can simply randomly select a number of samples to conduct a massive survey for planning purpose. Because of the nature of IT, the data collection way can be much more cost-effective and timely. Howerever, proper attention will be given to the information accessibility and other minority issues.

The economic downturn and urban development pattern

beconomist@gmail.com (Bao-Wen Chen) — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 01:39:00 +0000

The Sunset of Tokyo Bay, by me

Global Downturn

The world has seen a great deal of record-breakingly frustrating economic figures and globally well-known tycoons and magnates of automobile and finance industries that have filed for bankruptcy protection, been in the desprate need of a bailout, or shut down. The global economic downturn resulted from the financial crisis that first appeared in the Wall Street. While those financially-talented hedge fund managers or clever derivatives inventors were making the most out of their talents by creating even more risky and lucrative products, the U.S. and other countries who have bought those creative products started finding themselves stuck in the condition of great risk.

Demand Side

With the soaring interest rates due to risk-pursuing behavior in the market, some people stopped buying houses and the others who have bought by mortgage loan found themselves having trouble paying it off. As a result, house prices started to plunge. The next? Automobile industry. Even in a period during which the oil price has dropped more than 75% (from the peak of $143.28 to $35.53 per barrel, chart), people still stop buying cars due to credit shrinking. House and car are two main commodities that people would take out a loan to purchase. Now, of course, without the backup of over swelling credit, the two have hit the worst record of recent years.

Supply Side

The extraordinarily inspirational victory speech delivered by the president-elect Barack Obama is still haunting around. He stated that “Let us remember that if this financial crisis taught us anything, it’s that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers.(see Barack Obama's Victory Speech, New York Times)" With such a strong slogan, the president-elect is not only talking about changing the political focus back to the the middle class who has felt left behind by President Bush, but also talking about creating jobs and solving the problems of house foreclosures and the falling down of the Big Three. In the economy-stimulating plan proposed by president-elect Obama, billions of dollars will be spent addressing the issue of aging urban infrastructures (see Restore and Improve Urban Infrastructure, Grand Challenges for Engineering in the 21st Century. ) that has been identified by National Academy of Engineering in the U.S. The academy noted that those once providing the country with the most safe and effecient economic backbone and quality of life have been ignored over the past several years."In 2005, the American Society of Civil Engineers issued a report card, grading various categories of U.S. infrastructure. The average grade was D." With the focus shift to middle class and the minority, more investment on the well-worn public transportation is to be expected.

Employment

The skyrocketing number of jobless applications is sending signals that the U.S. labor market has been deteriorating rapidly in recent months. The Labor Department announced earlier this month that employers cut a total of 533,000 jobs in November, lifting the unemployment rate up to 6.7 percent, highest in 15 years (see chart). As the companies around the world are slashing jobs, in Japan, the recent cut of more than 30,000 temporary workers (accounting for one-third of workforce in Japan) also made it one of the serious victims of the downturn. (see Japan's Recession Hits "Temps", WSJ). Even though the unemployment rate in Japan remains relatively low, at 3.7%, it might come at the expense of the temporary workers's welfare who work with no security and little benefit.

The Implication on Urban Development

Accordingly, there are more and more jobless people out there selling cars and houses, and trying to look around for more job opportunities. They would be likely to (or are forced to)move out of the suburb where the level of amenity is high and move into the more central part of a city where monetry transportation cost is much lower and where they can save travel time for fitting into more part-time job vacancies. Therefore, in a good time, we might think that movement of people looking for settlement is going outward (buying more cars, wanting more amenity, not needing a 2nd job), and that's when the property price of the outskirts is rising aruptly. On the contrary, in a bad time, the movement is inward to a city, and that is when the property price of the outskirts is sinking. However, the rental price around city center is more likely to rise as comapred to the selling price, because of the difficulties in credit market. The magnitude of this effect (the effect of economic downturn on travel mode choice and urban development pattern)will depend on how long people are going to bear to the brunt of the downturn that is said to be the worst in a century.

A spoof on the bailout of the Big Three

beconomist@gmail.com (Bao-Wen Chen) — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 07:13:00 +0000

New Model of the Big Three - The Bailout
Source: http://buffalobeast.com/

The whole new model of the Big Three - The Bailout, coming this January. For many, it's quite a joke(and soon a reality) going to make the "invisible hands" visible. On the one hand, the Big Three and the United Automobile Workers union involve a whole value chain of automobile industry, domestically and internationally. With the rapidly plunging car sales, automakers and their upstream suppliers still account for 2.3% of the U.S. economic output. Approximately 20% of the shrinking manufacturing sector is strongly related to the automobile industry. On the other hand, the crisis would have come out much ealier if the lobbists had not been there making up the industry.

Here are two points of views from NY Times where we can get some insights from. First one is the concern of patriots (If Detroit Falls, Foreign Makers Could Be Buffer). In the article, Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Volkswagen, Ford, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Hyundai-Kia are mentioned. We don't know who will take over more and who will step in faster. Talking about the danger of foreign makers' takeover somehow shows ridiculousness to some extent. One thing that is really clear is that the competences from those mentioned foreign car makers have been in the industry for years. In Japan, where the three stongest car makers locate, waves of layoffs with somewhat much slighter scale (hundreds to a thousand) from the auto industry have also come to worsen its own economic recession (closely-related to the states, though). And according Japan Automobile Manufacturer Association, total vehicle production in Japan has dropped 20.4% in November to 854,171 vehciles compared to that of 2007 (See Associated Press: Japan auto production marks worst drop since 1967). Scaremongering and lobbying for self-interests (Clout Has Plunged for Automakers and Union, Too.) might save again the already-weak condition for the time being, but they certainly will not do anything good for the overall health of the car industry of the states in the future.

Transport Policy in Taiwan - Should We Build It?

beconomist@gmail.com (Bao-Wen Chen) — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 08:26:00 +0000

The beauty of eastern coast of Taiwan
Source: http://gip.taneeb.gov.tw/public/data/76271642171.jpg

I've been doing a research about the highway project in Taiwan that has been meant to be built over the past 2 decades. The tremendous amount of environmental, economic, as well as societal costs have caught people's attention all over the island. As time goes by, the enthusiasm and planned prosperity that had been added onto the project by the central government seems to has faded much away. However, different groups of stakeholders speak to their own interests. With a variety of voices and opinions, the government is still trying hard to push it into reality. Here is the link of the report. Any comment or recommendation is highly welcomed and appreciated.

Walking and Jugging only, Please

beconomist@gmail.com (Bao-Wen Chen) — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 07:45:00 +0000

Photo by: mrjames113083

At Santa Monica, California, the place known for its beautiful beach and sun-drenched residential areas, joggers and walkers might not be able to do stretching, situps, push-ups, and a lof more, on traffic median anymore. According to the news, Where the Traffic Median Is a No-Pilates Zone, from New York Times.

The target is increasingly loud, littering and generally intrusive groups of exercisers who gather from dawn until dusk along the Fourth Street median. The ocean view, the air and for some the architectural spectacle have transformed the area into a huge outdoor gym rimmed by multimillion-dollar homes."

Yes, it's not because of danger, but because of the increasingly annoying loud, mess, and use of commercialization. Everything is just not quite a big deal if all of them take place modestly. And yes, traffic median is a public space, so everybody is inherently entitiled some right of using it. However, rights is usually followed by obligations. With the prequisite that nobody will be annoyed, rousted out of bed, or even hurt, the right of using the public space might be more legitimately allowable.

On the other hand, with all the obligation those exercisers fulfill, the residents might also want to appreciate exercisers' contribution to making the neighborhood more vivid and energetic, indrectly sending a message to car drivers passing by that this is just a very livable place with all the good-looking people working out around, and favorably booming the price of house.

Metrocard's Another Role: An Airtight Alibi

beconomist@gmail.com (Bao-Wen Chen) — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 10:27:00 +0000

A news from "Murder Suspect Has Witness: A MetroCard", New York Times, has made clear the role of bus or subway turnstiles as electronic evidence maker. In this case, the airtight alibi provided by the byproduct of swipping metrocard through the slot of a turnstile in order to pay the fare has changed Mr. Jones' destiny which otherwise might not be possible back then when there wasn't such kind a device.

Although criticsims about its Big Brother effect have been haunting around for years, it'd be better to be able to set people free when they are guiltless and when our technology allows than worrying about being monitored by secretive operations of Big Brother. Now, it's people who take public transit leave their electronic evidence. But not too long later, when each car starts talking to each other, to the road, and to the highway administration center, electronic evidence will be even more powerful when it becomes ubiquitous.

ITS America: Best of ITS Award Winners Announced

beconomist@gmail.com (Bao-Wen Chen) — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 07:31:00 +0000

Best of ITS Award Winners Announced
ITS AMERICA NEWS

The Intelligent Transportation Society of America (ITS America) unveiled the winners of the 2008 Best of ITS Awards. They were presented during the 15th World Congress on ITS in New York.

Those winners from more than 40 entries were selected and under detailed scrutiny by an expert panel of judges, including the following categories, each with a set of outstanding performers:

Best New Innovative Product or Service
• Caltrans - Sensys Wireless Vehicle Detection System
• Nissan North America - Nissan Safety Shield 2007
• Visteon Corporation - The Visteon Light Vehicle Integrated Vehicle Based Safety System
• MTC and SAIC - San Francisco Bay Area 511

Best New Innovative Practices
• New York City DOT - The Applied Solid-state Traffic Controller
• NAVTEQ – NAVTEQ/Missouri DOT Advanced Traveler Information Services Project
• BMW of North America - The Next Generation Telematics Protocol (NGTP)
• Delcan - Lake County Passage Project
• Mississippi DOT - Reconnecting Mississippi's Coastal Communities Through ITS
• Western Transportation Institute at Montana State University- Partnerships for Deploying

Animal Vehicle Crash Mitigation Strategies
• Caltrans - Mobile Century: A Novel Approach to Traffic Data Collection from GPS-Equipped Mobile Phones
• Kentucky Transportation Cabinet - Safety Assistance for Freeway Emergencies Patrol

Outstanding ITS America State Chapter
• ITS Minnesota

[The Transporati Says]
The 16th ITS World Congress on Stockholm in next year has already started calling for paper for a while. For technical and scientific papers, the deadline for submission of draft technical papers and full scientific papers is December 1st, 2008. The topics are categorized as the following, anyone who is interested in it would better speed up the submission process.

A.ITS for transport and traffic managers
1. Demand management and access control
2. Traffic management
3. Public transport management
4. Traffic prediction
5. Incident and event management
6. Traffic modelling and simulation
7. Parking management

B.ITS for travellers and users
1. Connected traveller services
2. Infotainment and mobility services
3. Location based services
4. Navigation and positioning
5. Traveller information, In-Vehicle Information Systems (IVIS)
6. Multimodal information
7. ITS for public transport

C.ITS for drivers
1. Advanced Driver Assistance Systems(ADAS) /Intelligent Vehicle Systems (IVS)
2. eSafety
3. Human Machine Interaction
4. Nomadic devices
5. Speed advice/management and driver impairments
6. Cooperative services

D.ITS for freight and logistics
1. Urban logistics
2. Intermodal transport and logistics
3. International transport corridors (incl.megatrucks)
4. Dangerous goods management
5. Freight and fleet management
6. Standardised data exchange
7. Tracking and tracing

E.ITS addressing societal challenges
1. ITS for vulnerable users
2. ITS for children, elderly and disabled
3. ITS privacy and liability
4. ITS against social exclusion
5. ITS for enforcement
6. ITS for disaster management
7. ITS for security

F.ITS infrastructure
1. Data collection and aggregation
2. Digital maps
3. Network information maintenance and update
4. Cooperative vehicle infrastructure systems
5. Infrastructure use charging
6. Communication systems
7. Data exchange
8. ITS as a critical infrastructure

G.ITS deployment challenges
1. Business cases and policy support
2. ITS costs, impact and benefits
3. Standardisation and interoperability
4. Incentive programmes
5. Field operational tests
6. Public procurement
7. Awareness raising, education and training
8. Public-private partnerships
9. eTransactions (payment, booking, ticketing, tolling, cross borders)

H.ITS for our climate
1. Politics and control mechanisms
2. Drivers and travellers perspectives
3. Controlling with focus on climate
4. ITS deployment for a better climate
5. Green traffic management
6. Green navigation
7. Green transport and logistics

Why are there so many scooters in Taiwan?

beconomist@gmail.com (Bao-Wen Chen) — Wed, 21 May 2008 15:19:00 +0000

A Street in Taipei

Scooters seem to be a romantic, practical, and useful vehicle. They are highly convenient, mobile, and individually-unique. More over, some might even suggest that there is a symbolic role of scooters in Taiwan's economic success over the past several decades. No matter it's a rainy, windy, or sunny day, it hardly effects people's determination of using a scooter as their commuting tool. Taiwanese are extremely endured and tolerant of a tough life.

As a Taiwanese, I have no doubt with the illustration above. But there is only one problem: It's time to make a change.

What's wrong with the vast amount of scooters in Taipei? There are at least two main issues with which we should address very seriously here in Taiwan, congestion and pollution. As the authors of Freaknomics, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner noticed in the article Not-So-Free Ride, "this is not a political or moral argument; it is an economic one. "

There are as many costs associated with driving that the actual driver doesn't pay, and this condition is called negative externality in economics when the behavior of Person A damages the welfare of Person B, but B has little or no control over A's actions. If A wants to drive extra 100 kms more, he doesn't need to ask B; he just hops in the car and steps on the gas. Because A doesn't pay the true cost of his driving, he drives too much.

When personal marginal benefit is larger than societal marginal benefit, individuals tend to over consume the products.

The negative externalities of driving? Congestion, pollution, and traffic accidents. According to some analyses done by U.S. transportation institutions, the annual societal costs of congestion, pollution, and traffic accident in the U.S. are $20billion, $78billion, and $220billion, respectively. That is to say; each driver should pay more money based on a system that can truely reflect people's driving behavior.

In the article, the authors mentioned several ways to solve the problems, such as congestion pricing, which of course has been a hot-debated issue in New York City and turned out to be a fiasco (here and here). And the result of congestion pricing based on the popularities and crowdedness of streets is usually referred to nothing no more than a new creative tax on people who cannot afford to live in those luxurious districts.

The next possible solution is automobile insurance. Under current known or famous policy of insurance, if driver A and driver B live in the same city and engage in the same insurance risk pool (similar age etc.), the driver A who drives 30,000 kms per year probably pays the company same amount of money with driver B who only drives 3,000 kms per year. The meaning? With the extra 27,000 kms A drives each year, he got subsidized by B for every kilometer he drives.

It's not only about negative externalities. It has more to do with social justice.

This imbalance soon resulted in the new pricing system of Pay-As-You-Drive (PAYD) insurance that charges customers based on the distance they actually drive and also how they drive by adding a small electronic device which can detect their location and speed. The invention of this system needs more than the idea itself. It requires people's openness to the issue of privacy and the development of tracking technology, both of which are getting more and more clear over the last several years. And the only one thing left is insurance companies' financial evaluation on its possibility of being a big strike.

Bottom Line:
Reading this news reminded me of one of the good insurance we have done in Taiwan. The third party insurance (第三責任險). It is aimed to solve the problem of traffic accident by enforcing vehicle users to buy extra insurance in case of anything bad happens on the road. It has been done for many years. And it's an ingenuous one.

The sociability indicated by people's lives on the scale of a city is really fascinating.

About The Transporati

beconomist@gmail.com (Bao-Wen Chen) — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 13:40:00 +0000

The Transporati, a blog dedicated to the discovery of innovative policies and practices in urban/transport planning and microeconomics. It tries to look at them all at once for new possibilities.

The author is studying in Japan for his master degree in urban transportation. As he is wandering around Tokyo, one of the biggest metropolitan areas in the world, he is always amazed by its immensity. That's all? No. He is also attracted by the numerous small trails and streets inherited from the Edo period (江戸時代).　To anyone who is interested in Japanese cities and their historical development, I will recommend this book, The Making of Urban Japan: Cities and Planning from Edo to the Twenty First Century.

Any comments and opinions are welcome and appreciated. Please leave your thoughts or just drop a line saying hello. :)