Floridea Di Ciommo

Assessing the accessibility impact of transport policy by a land-use and transport interaction model - The case of Madrid

Abstract Accessibility is an essential concept widely used to evaluate the impact of transport and land-use strategies in urban planning and policy making. Accessibility is typically evaluated by using separately a transport model or a land-use model. This paper embeds two accessibility indicators (i.e., potential and adaptive accessibility) in a land use and transport interaction (LUTI) model in order to assess transport policies implementation. The first aim is to define the adaptive accessibility, considering the competition factor at territorial level (e.g. workplaces and workers). The second aim is to identify the optimal implementation scenario of policy measures using potential and adaptive accessibility indicators. The analysis of the results in terms of social welfare and accessibility changes closes the paper. Two transport policy measures are applied in Madrid region: a cordon toll and increase bus frequency. They have been simulated through the MARS model (Metropolitan Activity Relocation Simulator, i.e. LUTI model). An optimisation procedure is performed by MARS for maximizing the value of the objective function in order to find the optimal policy implementation (first best). Both policy measures are evaluated in terms of accessibility. Results show that the introduction of the accessibility indicators (potential and adaptive) influence the optimal value of the toll price and bus frequency level, generating different results in terms of social welfare. Mapping the difference between potential and adaptive accessibility indicator shows that the main changes occur in areas where there is a strong competition among different land-use opportunities.

Integrated Transport Planning Framework Involving Combined Utility Regret Approach

Sustainable transport planning requires an integrated approach involving strategic planning, impact analysis, and multicriteria evaluation. This study aimed at relaxing the utility-based decision-making assumption by newly embedding anticipated-regret and combined utility regret decision mechanisms in a framework for integrated transport planning. The framework consisted of a two-round Delphi survey, integrated land use and transport model for Madrid, and multicriteria analysis. Results show that (a) the regret-based ranking has a similar mean but larger variance than the utility-based ranking does, (b) the least-regret scenario forms a compromise between the desired and the expected scenarios, (c) the least-regret scenario can lead to higher user benefits in the short term and lower user benefits in the long term, (d) the utility-based, the regret-based, and the combined utility- and regret-based multicriteria analyses result in different rankings of policy packages, and (e) the combined utility regret ranking is more informative compared with the utility-based or the regret-based ranking.

Integration of Congestion Pricing and Intertemporal Preference Rate in Social Welfare Function

Many researchers have used theoretical or empirical measures to assess social benefits in transport policy implementation. However, few have measured social benefits by using discount rates, including the inter-temporal preference rate of users, the private investment discount rate, and the intertemporal preference rate of the government. In general, the social discount rate used is the same for all social actors. This paper aims to assess a new method by integrating different types of discount rates belonging to different social actors to measure the real benefits of each actor in the short term, medium term, and long term. A dynamic simulation is provided by a strategic land use and transport interaction model. The method was tested by optimizing a cordon toll scheme in Madrid, Spain. Socioeconomic efficiency and environmental criteria were considered. On the basis of the modified social welfare function, the effects on the measure of social benefits were estimated and compared with the classical welfare function measures. The results show that the use of more suitable discount rates for each social actor had an effect on the selection and definition of optimal strategy of congestion pricing. The usefulness of the measure of congestion toll declines more quickly over time. This result could be the key to understanding the relationship between transport system policies and the distribution of social actors’ benefits in a metropolitan context.

The Transport Debate

the boom of automobile, as the main individual mean of transport. Finally, the third stage of ‘Maturity’, dealing mainly with systems management, includes the ‘logistics revolution’, achieved by standardization of freight containers transport, and the development of high-speed rail and jets and of telematics technologies applied to transport. Maturity of the systems also faces the energy and environmental challenges in transport planning (and other sustainability issues) which induce some shifts in existing technology (e.g. electric cars and bio fuels). In the concluding chapters, the book discusses recent years’ transportation policies, highlighting weaknesses casting some shadows on the future. Overall, I found this book interesting for the interweaving of several plots of reading, which I hope this review might help to disentangle. My minor concerns would be about the fact that, at times, discussion is too much oriented on US market and less focused on what is undergoing in Europe and in the Far East. However, ‘The Transportation Experience’ is an important contribution and a key to understanding the world of transports and its evolution. The historical perspective that is included in it would be a source of inspiration to postgraduate students, to transport researchers as well as to planners, geographers and practitioners in the area.