Jasper Knockaert

Long-Run vs. Short-Run Perspectives on Consumer Scheduling: Evidence from a Revealed-Preference Experiment Among Peak-Hour Road Commuters

Earlier studies on scheduling behavior have mostly ignored that consumers have more flexibility to adjust their schedule in the long run than in the short run. We introduce the distinction between long‐run choices of travel routines and short‐run choices of departure times, using data from a real‐life peak avoidance experiment. We find that participants value travel time higher in the long‐run context, supposedly because changes in travel time can be exploited better through the adjustment of routines. Schedule delays are valued higher in the short run, reflecting that scheduling restrictions are typically more binding in the short run.

Adoption of Electric Vehicle in the Netherlands - A Stated Choice Experiment

In this paper, we apply a dynamic innovation diffusion framework to model adoption of full electric vehicles where we explicitly distinguish three major phases of adoption: introduction, growth and maturity. We combine this approach with an SP study to elicit individual preferences for conventional, hybrid and full electric vehicles. We apply a nested logit model to estimate the preferences for EVs based on the total costs of ownership approach that includes monetary and non-monetary costs of owing a vehicle. With negative estimates of WTP for hybrid vehicles (of about €900 on a yearly basis), our results suggest abolishment of subsidization of hybrid vehicles as they potentially crowd out EV adoption. Besides, EVs need to be subsidized on average at €2,000 per year, and this amount is decreasing in the process of vehicle adoption. Time costs associated with rapid charging are a substantial hindrance to EV adoption with average value of time of €63 per hour, increasing for each subsequent consumer segment from €48 to €122 per hour. Environmental costs of CO2 reductions are valued far above the market average at €160 per ton, but determine EV choices only at a later stage of adoption. Finally, towing potential is valued on average at €540 per year and it is about the same for all consumer segments throughout the adoption phases. Policy implications are discussed involving a mix of structural and monetary incentives.

Rewarding Peak Avoidance: The Dutch ‘Spitsmijden’ Projects

The Dutch road network is becoming increasingly congested. In late 2006, a group of companies, universities and government institutions established the Spitsmijden project. ‘Spitsmijden’ is the Dutch term for ‘avoiding the peak’. This joint initiative aimed to identify and assess a short-term solution that could extend the portfolio of transport policy instruments that may be used to manage temporal peaks in transport demand.

Stick to the Plan? A Revealed-Preference Study of Behavioural Impacts of Traffic Information

We estimate a revealed-preference scheduling model of morning peak behaviour that allows us to determine the impact of traffic information on traveller behaviour. Specifically, we distinguish between the marginal impact of expected travel times versus that of deviations from this expectation upon user behaviour. We find that participants that chose to receive a smart-phone with traffic information as a reward in our experiment respond to the deviation of actual travel times from the expectation, which they did not do before. This we interpret as evidence that traffic information indeed affects behaviour. We also find that participants who did not choose the smart-phone, but instead opted for monetary rewards, also respond to the deviation of actual travel times from the expectation. This suggests that these drivers use other sources of information to help their trip planning.