Staffan Algers

SAMPERS - The new Swedish National Travel Demand Forecasting Tool

Swedish transportation authorities have a long tradition of developing traffic demand models. The first generation of national models was developed in the beginning of the 1980s, a second generation during the first half of 1990s. These models have also been frequently used in a large number of projects but also as a part of the regular national strategic transport investment plan. The national planning process has been a four-year cycle of revising a ten-year investment scheme. The first step in this process is to undertake an analysis to decide on a general policy (like promoting accessibility or focusing on environmental protection). Here the models are used to analyse a few main alternatives, representing major differences in transportation policy and economic development (such as heavily increased petrol taxes to reduce carbondioxide emission).

Accelerated Introduction of ‘Clean’ Cars in Sweden

The increased focus in Sweden on greenhouse gas emissions, oil dependency and energy efficiency has lead to the implementation of different policy measures in the transport sector. In Sweden there has been a long tradition of buying large, powerful and heavy cars with high fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. The Swedish car fleet is the heaviest car fleet in all Europe. We describe and discuss effects of major measures that have been implemented to accelerate the introduction of clean cars in the Swedish car fleet. We also briefly describe a decision support tool to evaluate policies affecting the composition of the car fleet. We find that the result of the implemented measures is a high share of clean cars in new car sales and that these policies have lead to a dominance of low emission diesel cars and E85 cars in this share. We also find that the share of biogas cars is still very small and that the use of E85 fuel for E85 cars is quite price sensitive.

The Usefulness of Transport Models in Swedish Planning Practice

Abstract This paper presents some experience from using transport models in Swedish planning practice. First we outline three recent examples of planning settings in which transport models have been put to extensive use. For the Swedish ‘national’ transport plan for the period 2010–2021, which was recently finished, the national transport model SAMPERS was used to compute costs and benefits for many investment projects. The second example concerns the ‘regional’ plan for Stockholm, where a similar but less detailed model, LuTRANS, was used to investigate different transport and land use scenarios. The third example discusses a recent study on the feasibility of introducing congestion charges in Gothenburg, where both a fixed demand approach and SAMPERS were used. Furthermore, the paper tries to help identify what model development can do to help improve the production of decision support through modelling. We argue that effectiveness and efficiency are key. The first is characterized by making sure that the right things are done and that they are done right. Efficiency, which is less often discussed in the literature, is framed in terms of doing things on time and doing them only once. The managing organization around a national model system can play an important role in helping users avoid redundant work. It is also a good idea to resist the temptation to use up all improvements in computing power for additional model features. There are many worthwhile analyses that are never done because of time constraints.

Properties of Internet and Telephone Data Collection Methods in a Stated Choice Value of Time Study Context

We analyze Internet and telephone Stated Choice (SC) survey methods in the context of the Swedish value of time study 2008. In this study, extensive piloting and follow up surveys was undertaken to ...

Car fleet policy evaluation: the case of a Bonus-Malus system in Sweden

ABSTRACT In this paper, we evaluate the bonus-malus schemes proposed by governmental investigation in Sweden in 2014. The objective was to reach the target of maximum 95 g/km of average emissions for new car sales by 2020. Two bonus-malus schemes along with several other policies were introduced in different scenarios as measures to reach the target. The scenarios differ in design regarding bonus-malus schemes, vehicle circulation tax, clean car premiums, company car benefits tax, and fuel tax. Both private and company car segments are targeted in these scenarios. We use a nested logit model for car type choice to predict the effects of the proposed policy scenarios on Swedish new car sales. Moreover, we introduce a methodology to predict the future of car supply. Our model results show that none of the three proposed policy scenarios is successful enough to meet the average emissions target. Furthermore, although the number of electric, plug-in hybrid, and alternative fuel cars will increase, new car sales will still be dominated by fossil-fueled cars in all scenarios. The average emissions in the scenarios containing bonus-malus schemes are not lower than that of the business-as-usual scenario. However, introducing bonus-malus schemes on its own would reduce emissions showing that interacting with other non--differentiated policies counteracts their effects. Moreover, bonus-malus schemes are predicted to give a budget surplus effect.