Patricia C. Melo

Agglomeration, accessibility and productivity: Evidence for large metropolitan areas in the US:

This paper estimates the productivity gains from agglomeration economies for a sample of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States using measures of urban agglomeration based on employment density and employment accessibility. The latter is a more accurate measure of economic proximity and allows testing for the spatial decay of agglomeration effects with increasing travel time. We find that the productivity gains from urban agglomeration are consistent between measures, with elasticity values between 0.07 and 0.10. The large majority of the productivity gains occur within the first 20 minutes, and do not appear to exhibit significant nonlinearities.

Assessment of Wider Economic Impacts of High-Speed Rail for Great Britain

This paper considers the scope for wider economic impacts of agglomeration-based effects in the context of high-speed rail. The paper provides new evidence concerning the distance decay of long-distance travel and on the basis of such estimates assesses the potential order of magnitude of agglomeration benefits from improvements to high-speed rail transport in Great Britain. A new methodology assumed constancy of trip decay with respect to equal average travel times but variability with respect to distance. The expected outcome was that improvement in travel times would reduce the extent to which travelers perceived distance as an obstacle to interaction. Although urban economic theory did not preclude the existence of agglomeration benefits across interregional distances, the empirical evidence suggested that the order of magnitude of agglomeration benefits corresponding to 25% and 50% increases in travel speeds was small.

Impact of Transport Infrastructure on Firm Formation: Evidence from Portuguese Municipalities

This paper investigates the relationship between the availability of transport infrastructure and new plant openings in Portugal. The paper estimates an econometric model that uses plant-level data and geographic information systems to test whether denser motorway and railway networks have a positive effect on the formation of firms in Portuguese municipalities for various sectors of the economy. In addition to a study of the role of the own-municipality transport infrastructure, tests for the presence of spatial spillovers from the transport infrastructure were also conducted. The results suggest that both the railway and the motorway networks act as determinants of new plant openings. Expanding the local municipality railway and motorway networks by 10% can produce an increase in new plant openings from 0.9% to 2.7% and 0.7% to 2.6%, respectively. Positive spatial spillover effects from the transport infrastructure were also found: improving the motorway and railway networks of neighboring municipalities by 10% increases plant openings by from 2.7% to 5.1% and 2.4% to 6.7%, respectively.

Passenger-Focused Management Approach to Measurement of Train Delay Impacts

Train delay incidents have major effects on transit service reliability and on customer satisfaction. Operators have long focused efforts on preventing such incidents. While this action is important, the fact that all transit operations inevitably face some degree of delay and disruption from incidents means that operators must also dedicate attention to reducing the duration of incidents and the time to restore normal operations after incidents occur. To be able to do this, it is necessary to measure the total impact of incidents on train service and customers. This research uses data from the CoMET and Nova metro benchmarking groups to investigate the ways in which transit operators can better measure the full effects of incidents on train service and customers. The key benefit of such a passenger-focused approach is that it enables transit managers to direct resources for incident response and recovery better, as well as support the case for strategic investments. This research has shown that most operators measure and report only the frequency of incidents. Of the 22 metros interviewed, only two were able to provide detailed data to estimate the number of passengers affected by incidents. It is no coincidence that the only two metros able to provide detailed data are in fact two of the most reliable in the group.

Effects of Road Investments on Economic Output and Induced Travel Demand: Evidence for Urbanized Areas in the United States

The objective of this study is to analyze the effects of road transportation investment on economic output and induced travel demand. Data for U.S. urbanized areas are analyzed within a dynamic panel vector auto-regression model to test whether the effects of transportation-induced economic growth and travel demand can be empirically validated. The results show that investment in road capacity increases average economic growth while simultaneously inducing additional growth in traffic (vehicle miles traveled). Indeed, a general failure of investment to alleviate levels of congestion is found; this finding suggests that productivity shifts are brought about through a net increase in the scale of travel and associated interactions rather than improved network performance as measured by travel times. The evidence also shows that congestion forms part of the decision criterion used to allocate investments in road capacity. If improvements in network performance are to be achieved in a climate of travel demand growth, demand management techniques may be more effective than capacity expansion.

Regional poverty mapping in Europe – Challenges, advances, benefits and limitations

The ‘at-risk-of-poverty’ rate is the most widely recognised indicator of income poverty. Its principal advantage is that it is relatively straightforward to define and (given appropriate data) to calculate. National at-risk-of-poverty rates play a key role in monitoring EU2020 objectives relating to combating poverty. Regional patterns of poverty have the potential to deepen our understanding of processes of impoverishment and differentiation, and how they can be more effectively addressed by policy. Estimating regional poverty rates, and especially producing a European map, is a challenging task, given current data resources. This paper begins by placing the at-risk-of-poverty rate within the wider conceptual context relating to poverty, social exclusion and deprivation. It then provides an account of an exercise to map at-risk-of-poverty rates at NUTS 3 across 20 European countries. Together with data derived from national registers (where available) and more direct apportionment methods, coverage of most of Western Europe is achieved. The patterns revealed are described, and generalisations, which serve as pointers to further research on the processes responsible, are derived. The paper concludes with some reflections on the value of regional at-risk-of-poverty rates in advancing our understanding of the distribution and causes of poverty, and hence appropriate interventions to ameliorate it.

Transportation-Induced Agglomeration Effects and Productivity of Firms in Megacity Region of Paris Basin

This paper undertakes empirical analysis of the relationship between productivity and transportation-induced agglomeration effects in the megacity region of the Paris Basin. The authors believe this to be the first study in the French context to produce elasticities of urban agglomeration economies for different industry sectors. Furthermore, the measure of agglomeration used by the authors explicitly took account of accessibility to economic mass in terms of driving times. This study is the first attempt to investigate the presence of nonlinearities in the relationship between productivity and agglomeration with French data. The findings indicate that transportation-induced agglomeration effects differ across industry groups and are greater for business services; these findings agree with existing evidence for other countries. The results also suggest considerable nonlinearity in the relationship between productivity and transportation-induced agglomeration effects and imply that the conventional estimation of country-level aggregate elasticities is likely to misrepresent the actual magnitude of any productivity gains from agglomeration.

Impacts of Moving-Block Signaling on Technical Efficiency: Application of Propensity Score Matching on Urban Metro Rail Systems

This study tested the effect of introducing moving-block signaling on the technical efficiency of urban metro rail systems. The study used a panel data set of 27 urban metro systems across 20 countries for 2004 to 2012. When moving-block signaling was considered as a treatment, the effect of the associated benefits on output efficiency levels was able to be measured. Stochastic frontier analysis was employed to estimate technical efficiencies for each metro, and then propensity score matching was applied to evaluate the effect of the type of signaling on technical efficiency. The study allowed the selection of appropriate reference groups and accounted for confounding factors. The study is novel in its provision of empirical evidence of this nature. The results indicate that the technical efficiency of a metro can be improved by 11.5%.

Determinants of Delay Incident Occurrence in Urban Metros

The reliability of train service is a key objective of metro management and a major part of a successful operation. An occurrence of incidents in the network is likely to cause delays to the train service and disorder in the punctuality and regularity of the metro operation and hence affects the service reliability of the metro system. This result suggests a way to improve train service reliability by reducing the occurrence of incidents in urban metro systems. This paper used statistical techniques to identify the main factors that explained the variation in the number of delay incidents across 42 metro lines of 15 different metro systems from 2005 to 2009. The main factors that explained differences in incident performance across urban metro lines were the technology of the mode of train operation, the level of passenger demand, the service level operated during peak periods, and the practical capacity available. In contrast, engineering and usually fixed factors such as the type of track support, the type of rail connection, and the type of rolling stock wheel did not affect the level of incidents. The findings also suggested that metro-specific factors (e.g., differences in maintenance and management practices, operations management, and health and safety procedures) helped to explain the variation in incident performance across urban metros.

Driving down road transport CO2 emissions in Scotland

ABSTRACT This study develops an empirical model of regional road transport CO2 emissions for Scotland to investigate the relative importance of demand-led and supply-led factors, particularly those relating to fuel efficiency and the decarbonization of the vehicle fleet through the switch to alternative fuels. The analyses suggest that although significant, the positive impact of fleet decarbonization in the reduction of road transport CO2 emissions is very small given the current levels of adoption of cleaner fuels. Instead, efforts to improve fuel efficiency are likely to be more effective at reducing emissions than fleet decarbonization. The main sources of regional variation in road transport CO2 emissions relate to demand-led factors, in particular differences in urbanization, vehicle ownership, income levels, and the presence of freight-related traffic.