Charles Raux

An Analytical Framework of Pricing Acceptability: Application to Four Case Studies

This chapter draws an analytical framework from a theoretical approach of acceptability and applies it to the assessment of acceptability of a series of ongoing road pricing schemes in Europe. The first section elaborates on the theoretical framework of acceptability based on an application of the Rawisian theory of justice in the area of mobility and transport services. This framework is next applied to some successful and some failed tolling schemes in urban areas. The Lyon case study is extended to show how a quantitative evaluation of acceptability can be made possible.

Exploring the polycentric city with multi-worker households: An agent-based microeconomic model

We propose an agent-based dynamics which leads an urban system to the standard equilibrium of the Alonso, Muth, Mills (AMM) framework. Starting for instance from a random initialization, agents move and bid for land, performing a kind of local search and finally leading the system to equilibrium rent, density and land use. Agreement with continuous analytical results is only limited by the discreteness of simulations. We then study polycentrism in cities with this tool. Two job centers are introduced, and the economic, social and environmental outcomes of various polycentric spatial structures are presented. We also introduce two-worker households whose partners may work in different job centers. When various two-worker households are mixed, polycentrism is desirable, as long as centers are not moved too far apart from each other. The environmental outcome is also positive, but housing surfaces increase.

Sexe et usage de l'espace ? L'influence de la répartition des rôles au sein du ménage

Sex and space use: the mediation of role distribution in the households. - Authors show, by means of two surveys they processed, the complexity of the relationship between gender differentiation and space use. They analyse this relationship with the mediation of role distribution in the household. Factors such as matrimonial status of household (couple or mother alone), employment status of women (working or non-working), children age and urban space, seem to be far more discrimination than only gender difference between men and women. Responsibility of household activities (children and chopping) is always for women, but the strongest difference in activity participation and space use is at first between both working men and women on the one hand and non-working women on the other hand, and secondly between working men and working women.

Péage urbain et (in)justice perçue: un obstacle à l'expérimentation en France ?

Urban Toll and (un)Fairness: an Obstacle to an Experimentation in France? - With an attitude survey in Lyon, we test different principles of rationing car traffic by prices (road toll) or by quantities (odd numbers or reduced day of travelling). Rationing by price or by quantity is strongly perceived as unfair by responders. Attitudes towards tolls justified by the pollution caused by automobile traffic are less negative. On the compensation side, car-pooling should have free toll. Support for a reduced rate for low-income users means an equity position we have to answer.

The Simulation of Behaviour in a Nonexperienced Future

Is it possible to simulate in a realistic manner behavioural reactions to a nonexperienced and a priori nonaccepted travel situation such as urban road pricing? We base our methodological answer on a series of gaming-simulation interviews of a small group of drivers. On the basis of one of their previous driving days, respondents had to adapt their behaviour to traffic congestion and driving bans and then, after the introduction of a new public transport supply, to scenarios of pay parking and finally of urban road pricing. As congestion is a phenomenon which the respondents know well and have often lived through, even if it has never been too serious in their own experience, the analysis of how the simulation operates suggests that this method of simulation could be relevant. This is how the application of this method is made possible for urban road pricing scenarios, which have not been experienced, nor initially accepted. The pertinence of the adaptations carried out and the implication of the respondents do not contradict the ability of this simulation method to elicit reactions. The stated adaptations--search for space and time modifications, resistance to congestion, apparent absence of costs calculation and partial transfer to public transport--suggest particular behavioural decision processes which need further validation. Methodological issues are also discussed, which help to point at the limits of application of this method. Apart from helping the construction of questionnaires for conventional stated preferences surveys, the main advantages are the exploration of choice processes, rather than elaborating the actual future adaptations themselves, and the working out of behavioural hypotheses.