Social cost-benefit analysis is often used to analyse transport investments, and can also be used for transport operation planning and capacity allocation. If it is to be used for resolving capacity conflicts, however, it is important to know whether transit agencies' timetable requests are consistent with the cost-benefit framework, which is based on passenger preferences. We show how a public transport agency's implicit valuations of waiting time and crowding can be estimated by analysing timetables, apply the method to commuter train timetables in Stockholm, and compare the implicit valuations to the corresponding passenger valuations in the official Swedish cost-benefit analysis guidelines. The results suggest that the agency puts a slightly lower value on waiting time and crowding than the passenger valuations codified in the official guidelines. We discuss possible reasons for this and implications for using cost-benefit analysis for capacity allocation. We also find that optimal frequencies are more sensitive to the waiting time valuation than to that of crowding.

We develop a model for empirical evaluation of the social costs and benefits of street parking charges. From the model, we derive an expression for optimal parking charges and occupancy levels: in optimum, parking search costs are balanced against the loss of consumer surplus from unused parking spaces. Contrary to rules-of-thumb common in practice, optimal occupancy levels are not constant but depend on parking turnover rates and parking search costs. We demonstrate the models applicability in a case study from Stockholm, where parking charges were recently introduced in suburban residential areas. The charges had considerable effects on parking de-mand, but our analysis shows that the overall welfare effect was a substantial welfare loss. Using parameters and demand functions estimated from the case study, we calculate optimal parking charges and occupancy levels, and show that the welfare loss arises because the introduced charges were considerably higher than the optimal ones.

As railway markets are increasingly deregulated, coordinating and prioritising between capacity requests becomes more complex and more important. This paper describes the advantages and challenges of different allocation methods in vertically separated open-access railway markets, with several railway operators and heterogeneous traffic, and where a public infrastructure manager must resolve operators conflicting path requests. Three broad groups of allocation methods are described: administrative methods, allocation by social cost-benefit analysis and willingness-to-pay based allocation. We describe pros and cons of these allocation principles for three different market segments: commercial traffic with long planning horizons, (subsidized) traffic controlled by public transport agencies, and traffic with short planning horizons. We then outline an allocation process that meets the requirements of a deregulated market better than conventional methods. It is a mixed method, which uses an auction-like mechanism to allocate pre-defined paths to commercial operators on specified, capacity-constrained lines. The net social benefits of capacity reserved for traffic controlled by public transport agencies is assessed through social cost-benefit analysis of timetables. The benefits decrease when timetables are adjusted to make room for additional commercial train paths; the size of this loss determines the reservation price of the auction-like mechanism. Dynamic pricing is used for short-term allocation on congested line segments.

Railway markets in Europe have been reorganized to allow competition between different operators. Thus, European railways have been vertically separated, separating infrastructure management from provisions of train services. This allows several train operators to compete for passengers and freight services. Different ways have emerged for vertical separation, capacity allocation and track access charges. This paper reviews, compares and discusses important deregulation aspects, using examples from a number of European countries to show different possible solutions. The study describes how competition has been introduced and regulated, with a particular focus on describing the different ways capacity is allocated and how conflicting requests by different train operators are resolved. It also reviews the related issue of how access charges are constructed and applied. Although guided by the same European legislation, we conclude that the studied railways have different deregulation outcomes, e.g., market organization, capacity allocation. Besides, few countries have so far managed to create efficient and transparent processes for allocating capacity between competing train operators. Although allowed by the legislation, market-based allocation is absent or never used. In order to foster more competition which can yield substantial social benefits, the survey indicates that most European railways still need to develop and experiment with more efficient and transparent capacity allocation procedures.

Historiska data visar att vi i genomsnitt lägger ungefär en timme per person och dag på att resa, oavsett samhällets förändringar. Vi gör därför klokt i att inte hänga upp vår klimat-, miljö- eller transportpolitik på förhoppningen att resandet kommer att minska efter pandemin, skriver professorn i transportsystem Jonas Eliasson.  

Passenger origin–destination data is an important input for public transport planning. In recent years, new data sources have become increasingly common through the use of the automatic collection of entry counts, exit counts and link flows. However, collecting such data can be sometimes costly. The value of additional data collection hence has to be weighed against its costs. We study the value of additional data for estimating time-dependent origin–destination matrices, using a case study from the London Piccadilly underground line. Our focus is on how the precision of the estimated matrix increases when additional data on link flow, destination count and/or average travel distance is added, starting from origin counts only. We concentrate on the precision of the most policy-relevant estimation outputs, namely, link flows and station exit flows. Our results suggest that link flows are harder to estimate than exit flows, and only using entry and exit data is far from enough to estimate link flows with any precision. Information about the average trip distance adds greatly to the estimation precision. The marginal value of additional destination counts decreases only slowly, so a relatively large number of exit station measurement points seem warranted. Link flow data for a subset of links hardly add to the precision, especially if other data have already been added.

During the pandemic, passenger transport has decreased dramatically due to restrictions and recommendations to avoid social contacts. Hopes and expectations have been raised that experiences, habits and improved digital services developed or discovered during the pandemic can lead to a permanent decrease of travel volumes even in the long run, thereby reducing emissions, noise and congestion. This paper discusses this question, based on descriptive analyses of historical development of travel distances and travel times in Sweden, including a description of how transportation changed in Sweden during the pandemic. Obviously, it is too early to give a conclusive answer regarding long run effects, but judging from historical experiences of previous improvements in transportation and communication, it seems unlikely that increased digital experience, improved digital services or changed habits will lead to permanently reduced travel volumes. It appears more likely that improved digital services and increased digital maturity will continue to transform work, shopping and leisure, but that this will not translate into decreased physical travel to any large extent.

Striking a balance between societal benefits and costs of transportation lies at the heart of transport planning and transport systems analysis. Increased transport and urbanization enable the many benefits of modern socieities through specialization of labour, production and lifestyles – but these trends simultaneously increase the drawbacks of transportation, such as carbon emissions, congestion, noise and air quality problems. Technical developments and improved infrastrastructure can help reduce these drawbacks, but they do not solve the fundamental problem that those reaping the benefits of transport – travellers, firms, customers – do not perceive the full social costs of transportation. To balance transport costs and benefits, efficient pricing is necessary. Despite a wealth of theoretical arguments, technical developments and substantial practical experience, efficient transport pricing is still rare. Focusing on the example of urban congestion pricing, this paper summarizes why transport pricing is needed, lessons learnt from practical experience, and what the main obstacles are. The two most important obstacles seem to be political power struggles between different levels of governments, and that even if total social gains vastly exceed total social losses, the losses tend to be more salient; losers tend to be easy to identify, while winners tend to be more dispersed and perhaps only exist in the future.

This paper provides two microeconomic models that derive the social cost of a low emission zone (LEZ) for light vehicles. We apply the models to a proposed LEZ for light vehicles in Stockholm, which would prohibit diesel cars of Euro 5 or lower and gasoline cars of Euro 4 or lower in the inner city (25 km2) and conduct a cost-benefit analysis of the proposed LEZ. The first model is based on how an increase in user cost impacts traffic volumes in the inner city. This rather conventional user cost calculation of drivers loss requires however some strong assumptions. The second model shows that drivers losses can be calculated based on price changes observed on the used car market. Our empirical results indicate that the welfare loss resulting from the two models are of the same magnitude. The forecast benefits of the LEZ consist primarily of air quality improvements leading to health benefits. Even if our empirical results must be interpreted with caution, it seems clear that the costs considerably outweigh the benefits in this case study.

The train timetabling problem (TTP) consists of finding a feasible timetable for a number of trains which minimises some objective function, e.g., sum of running times or deviations from ideal departure times. One solution approach is to solve the dual problem of the TTP using so-called bundle methods. This paper presents a new bundle method that uses disaggregate data, as opposed to the standard bundle method which in a certain sense relies on aggregate data. We compare the disaggregate and aggregate methods on realistic train timetabling scenarios from the Iron Ore line in Northern Sweden. Numerical results indicate that the proposed disaggregate method reaches better solutions faster than the standard aggregate approach.

We analyze the distribution of transit subsidies across population groups in Stockholm. We develop a novel methodology that takes into account that the subsidy per passenger varies across transit links, since production costs and load factors vary. With this, we calculate the subsidy per trip in the transit network and analyze the distribution of subsidies across population groups. The average subsidy rate in Stockholm is 44%, but the variation across trips turns out to be large: while 34% of the trips are not subsidized at all but generates a profit, 16% of the trips have a subsidy rate higher than 2/3. We calculate the concentration index to explore the distribution of subsidies across income groups. The average subsidy per person is similar for all income groups, except for the top income quintile. This holds not only for the current flat-fare system, but also for distance-based fares and fares with a constant subsidy rate. Transit subsidies is hence not effective as a redistribution policy in Stockholm. The largest systematic variation we find is across residential areas: the average subsidy per person is five times higher in the peripheral areas of the region compared to the regional core, and the subsidy per trip is ten times higher.

De kallades politiskt självmord men har blivit en internationell succé. Jonas Eliasson, som var med och utformade systemet med trängselavgifter, skriver i denna analys om det som fungerade i Stockholm och varför väljarna sparkar bakut i Göteborg.

Street parking fees are common in many cities across the world. Knowledge on how such fees impact parking demand is crucial for designing charging schemes. Empirical studies of parking fees are however scares and often hampered by a lack of data systematically collected before and after policy changes. Moreover, almost all studies analyzing the impact of fees on parking demand focuses on dense city centers. This paper aims as showing how on-street parking count conducted before and after the introduction of parking fees of in the suburbs of Stockholm impact parking demand. This paper analyses data conducted before and after the implementation of the new parking policy in 2017, where on-street parking fees were introduced for the first time in the inner suburbs. At the same time, the amount of the fee was also increased in the inner city. Moreover, the fine was raised for the parking ticket issued to cars parked in breach of parking regulations. We find a 35-40 percent reduction in the number of parked cars in response to the introduction of parking fees in the suburbs. However, the increase in the parking fees in the inner city had a substantially lower effect or no effect at all on demand. The effect of increasing the amount of the fine had no impact on the number of the cars violating parking restrictions.

I direktivet till inriktningsunderlaget anges att förutsättningarna som prognoserna för trafikutvecklingen bygger på ska väljas så att klimatmålen för 2030 och 2045 nås på ett kostnadseffektivt och hållbart sätt, samt med hänsyn till andra transportpolitiska mål och principer. I Trafikverkets basprognos publicerad 2020 har förutsättningarna valts så att ett härlett klimatmål för 2040 på 90 procent mindre utsläpp än 2010 uppnås. Syftet med föreliggande analys är att undersöka om basprognosförutsättningarna valts så att klimatmålen uppnås på ett kostnadseffektivt och hållbart sätt.

On deregulated railway markets, efficient capacity allocation is important. We study the case where commercial trains and publicly controlled traffic (“commuter trains”) use the same railway infrastructure and hence compete for capacity. We develop a method that can be used by an infrastructure manager trying to allocate capacity in a socially efficient way. The method calculates the loss of societal benefits incurred by changing the commuter train timetable to accommodate a commercial train path request, and based on this calculates a reservation price for the train path request. If the commercial operator’s willingness-to-pay for the train path exceeds the loss of societal benefits, its request is approved. The calculation of these benefits takes into account changes in commuter train passengers’ travel times, waiting times, transfers and crowding, and changes in operating costs for the commuter train operator(s). The method is implemented in a microscopic simulation program, which makes it possible to test the robustness and feasibility of timetable alternatives. We show that the method is possible to apply in practice by demonstrating it in a case study from Stockholm, illustrating the magnitudes of the resulting commercial train path prices. We conclude that marginal societal costs of railway capacity in Stockholm are considerably higher than the current track access charges.

Rapporten, som är svar på ett regeringsuppdrag om alternativa prognosscenarier, beskriver kvantitativa analyser av hur olika strategier avseende fordon, bränslen och förändringar i vägtrafikarbete kan bidra till att nå klimatmålen, för att på så sätt ge underlag för ett antal strategiska vägval. Ett antal scenarier redovisas som alla når klimatmålet 2030, men där olika strategier bidrar i olika hög grad och genomförs på olika sätt. Fördelar, nackdelar och risker med olika strategier, styrmedel och åtgärder beskrivs och analyseras översiktligt.

Nio forskare från olika discipliner ingår i SNS Konjunkturråd 2020. Forskarna har bred bakgrund inom nationalekonomi, juridik, naturvetenskap och ingenjörsvetenskap. Tillsammans har de skrivit SNS Konjunkturrådsrapport 2020: Svensk politik för globalt klimat, där de fokuserar på hur politiken ska utformas för att bromsa och till slut stoppa klimatförändringarna. Några av deras viktigaste förslag och rekommendationer: 

Låt kolet stanna i marken. Det är kolet, inte konventionell olja, som är det centrala hotet mot klimatet. Om klimatförändringarna ska hejdas måste Kina bli av med sitt kolberoende. Indien och Afrika kan inte heller följa Kinas kolkraftsbaserade utvecklingsstrategi. Merparten av världens kolreserver måste stanna i marken.

Inför globalt minimipris på koldioxidutsläpp och slopa fossilsubventioner. Det är två nödvändiga ingredienser i klimatpolitiken som måste diskuteras på FN:s nästa stora klimatkonferens COP26 i Glasgow.

Gröna subventioner räcker inte för att minska utsläppen. Billig grön energi leder till ökad användning av sådan men inte automatiskt till att fossila bränslen utkonkurreras.

Bidra till rätt global inriktning. Den svenska klimatpolitiken bör ha som överordnat mål att minska de globala utsläppen.Bidra finansiellt till andra länders omställning. Klokt och välavvägt klimatbistånd är både möjligt och önskvärt. Inom ramen för EU:s klimatpolitik finns fungerande sätt att finansera mindre rika medlemsländers utsläppsminskningar. Men eftersom även Sverige måste bli klimatneutralt bör ett ökat klimatbistånd inte minska de svenska klimatambitionerna.

Klimatklubbar. Sverige bör driva frågan om att det ska vara tillåtet att införa klimattullar mot länder som inte har en acceptabel nivå på utsläppspriset. En modell är så kallade klimatklubbar där länder går ihop och sätter ett enhetligt utsläppspris. Import från länder som inte deltar i klubben beläggs med en tull.

Fossilfri elexport kan ge betydande minskningar av utsläppen inom EU genom att pressa undan kolkraft där sådan fortfarande används.

Finansiera insamling och lagring av koldioxid (CCS-teknik) med lagringspeng. Vi kan ta hand om koldioxid motsvarande hälften av Sveriges utsläpp till en kostnad motsvarande det som dras in till staten via koldioxidskatten. Det krävs dock en statlig finansiering som bör utformas som ett bidrag per ton insamlad och säkert lagrad koldioxid:

– Motsvarande runt hälften av Sveriges koldioxidutsläpp kan tas bort om CCS-tekniken införs på de 27 industrianläggningar som släpper ut mest i Sverige. Detta är mer än utsläppen från hela den svenska vägtrafiken. Tekniken fungerar också i resten av världen och Sverige kan här bli ett föregångsland, säger John Hassler, ordförande i SNS Konjunkturråd 2020.

When benefits of proposed infrastructure investments are forecasted, residential location is usually treated as fixed, since very few operational transport models are able to forecast residential relocation. It has been argued that this may constitute a source of serious error or bias when evaluating and comparing the benefits of proposed infrastructure investments. We use a stylized simulation model of a metropolitan region to compare calculated benefits for a large number of infrastructure investments with and without taking changes in residential location into account. In particular, we explore the changes in project selection when assembling an optimal project portfolio under a budget constraint. The simulation model includes endogenous land prices and demand for residential land, heterogeneous preferences and wage offers across residents, and spillover mechanisms which affect wage rates in zones. The model is calibrated to generate realistic travel patterns and demand elasticities. Our results indicate that ignoring residential relocation has a small but appreciable effect on the selected project portfolio, but only a very small effect on achieved total benefits.

Detta är en underlagsrapport till det inriktningsunderlag inför transportinfrastruktur-planering för perioden 2022–2033 och 2022–2037, som Trafikverket redovisade till regeringen den 30 oktober 2020. En viktig utgångspunkt är 2020 års basprognoser som Trafikverket tidigare presenterat. Prognoserna beskriver trafikens förväntade utveckling fram till 2040, där en kombination av påskyndad elektrifiering, ökad reduktionsplikt samt högre bränslepriser som minskar bränsletrafiken (fossildriven) gör att klimatmålen nås. Den representerar därför väl de förutsättningar som gäller för det mest kostnadseffektiva sättet att nå klimatmålen. Syftet med prognoserna är varken att beskriva en önskvärd framtid eller en ideal klimatpolitik, utan utgöra en referensutveckling för bland annat infrastrukturplanering.

Accessibility plays an essential role in determining real estate prices and land use. An understanding of how accessibility and changes in accessibility influence real estate prices is key to making decisions regarding investments in infrastructure projects. From an accessibility point of view, it is not clear that there should be differences in valuation depending on the mode of public transport, road, or rail. There are, however, other differences that may affect real estate prices differently. For example, railway stations more often than bus stations, tend to be associated with a higher level of service. In addition, an investment in a railway station may signal a long-term decision from the policymaker. A third possible explanation concerns differences in perceived safety, comfort, and security. This paper aims to study if and how capitalization of accessibility differs between modes of transportation. The findings indicate that rail has a higher impact, both for single-family and multifamily houses. The implication of these findings may be of importance for future infrastructure investments and their corresponding cost-benefit analyses. Incorrect valuations of the benefits of infrastructure investments may result in sub-optimal investments.

Many railway networks suffer from high capacity utilisation. For scheduling all services, adjustments to the desired slots are often needed. Such adjustments might lead to longer travel times, crowded trains, longer waiting times for boarding and for transfers. All of this has an important socio-economic impact on both travellers and train operators. This raises the question of the socio-economic assessment of changes in commuter train timetables including transfers. Thus, the aim of this study is to evaluate the effects of adjustments of commuter train timetables on the traveller (i.e. consumer costs) and the train operator (i.e. producer costs). These costs are estimated based on all train trips and operations in the network. In a case study, the effect of changes in departure times (resulting in non-regular interval timetables) is analysed. Further, the price of cancelling a two-way service during different times of the day is compared. The results show that changing departure times can both decrease and increase the total costs, and that regularity for parallel services might not be as important as expected if it is kept for each separate service. For the second study, waiting times for transfers were indicated to have a (too) large impact which can lead to misleading results and might be adjusted in future work. The model is adequate for such kind of questions but needs some more adjustments. For railway networks with dense and heterogeneous traffic (as is the case in Sweden), the contributions of this model are useful for making the challenging timetabling process easier and commuter train services less costly.

This paper addresses the problem of measuring the welfare benefits of a transport improvement. We formulate and analyze a rich spatial model that allows for spillovers, matching and income tax, in a setting with multiple work and residential locations and very general worker heterogeneity. The conventional consumer surplus captures part of the benefits and is calculated based on predictions of changes in travel demand and transport costs. The issue is to determine which so-called wider impacts to add to this. We find that adding the change in total output as a wider impact leads to double-counting of benefits. The output change due to spillovers should be added, while the output change due to matching is already partly included in the consumer surplus. These results are useful for applied cost-benefit analysis of transport policies

We explore the issue of differentiating the valuation of travel time savings (VTTS) in transport cost-benefit analysis, summarising and discussing theories forming the basis for arguments for and against VTTS differentiation. We stress some important implications, insights and consequences of different assumptions relating to these theories, many of which we feel have been underappreciated in much of the CBA literature and practice. We derive a welfare rule including a social cost for monetary redistributions and show the implications for how the VTTS can be defined in different choice situations. Crucially, the applicable VTTS definition depends on whether travel costs (fares) are under public control and to whom benefits accrue in the long run. In some choice situations, the VTTS should be controlled for differences in income, but it is important to always take into account differences in marginal utilities of time (e.g. across travel time components, modes and trip purposes). Using Swedish data, we show that controlling the VTTS for income differences changes the VTTS only slightly; the variation in VTTS across modes, trip lengths, trip purposes apparently stems primarily from differences in marginal utilities of time rather than income.

Rapporten är skriven av Jonas Eliasson, professor i transportsystem, och fokuserar på hur transportsystemet kan vässas och skapa en bättre tillgänglighet så att människor lättare når ett rikt utbud av arbetsplatser, service, aktiviteter och andra människor. 

Rapporten är uppdelad i fyra delar:

3 utgångspunkter som beskriver Stockholmstrafikensutveckling och problem

6 principiella strategier för hur länetstransportsystem kan förbättras

9 konkreta åtgärder

27 förslag på lovande infrastrukturinvesteringar.

In recent years, several countries have deregulated passenger railway markets to allow open access. The aim is for competition to lower fares and increase quality of service, thereby increasing demand, economic efficiency and overall social welfare. We use a stylised simulation model to study how open access competition affects fares, demand, supply, consumer surplus and operator profits compared to a profit maximising monopoly and to a welfare maximising benchmark situation. We conclude that aggregate social welfare increases substantially when going from profit maximising monopoly to duopoly competition, as consumers make large gains while operators profits fall. It matters how the infrastructure manager sets the timetable based on operators capacity requests: the infrastructure manager should strive to increase competition by mixing competing operators departures as much as possible. According to simulations, there generally exists a stable competitive Nash equilibrium with two or more profitable operators. Although operators are identical in the model setup, the Nash equilibrium outcome is asymmetric: one operator has more departures and higher average fares than the other does. If operators are allowed to cooperate, however, for example by trading or selling departure slots, the equilibrium situation tends to revert to monopoly. The regulatory framework must therefore prevent collusion and facilitate market entry. Even the potential for competitive entry tends to increase social welfare, as the monopolist has incentives to increase supply as an entry deterrence strategy.

The fundamental reason for the existence of cities is that they enable high accessibility. High accessibility is associated both with economic gains such as higher wages and productivity and opportunities to satisfy specialised interests and lifestyles. The history of human civilisation is a history of urbanisation. Scientific and cultural progress rest on two cornerstones: one is the written language, enabling us to communicate innovations and experiences over distance and time; the other is cities, which have always been our engines of innovations and discovery. Since the demand for and the rewards of high accessibility have accelerated over the last two centuries, this has fuelled urbanisation at an ever higher pace. 

We analyse distributional effects of four car-related tax instruments: an increase of the fuel tax, a new kilometre tax, an increased CO2-differentiated vehicle ownership tax, and a CO2-differentiated purchase tax on new cars. Distributional effects are analysed with respect to income, lifecycle category, and spatial dimensions. The analysed taxes are progressive over most of the income distribution, but barely regressive if the highest and lowest incomes are included. However, the fraction of the population who suffer substantial welfare losses relative to income is much higher in lower income groups. We also study revenue recycling schemes; when these are included, the combined effect of tax and recycling is progressive. Considering geographical differences; rural areas carry a larger burden of fuel and vehicle taxes than urban areas, and satellites/suburbs carry a larger burden than central cities. However, rural areas are affected remarkably similar regardless of where in the country they are located.

On-rail competition is perhaps the most far-reaching form of deregulation of the railways, giving travellers several options on a single line. It aims to lower fairs and raise quality of service, thereby boosting demand and social welfare. Concerns have been raised, however, regarding if effective competition is possible on such a market, allowing two or more operators to be profitable and eliminating through incentives or regulation the purchase by one operator of the others' access rights, thus restoring monopoly. In addition, the effect of competition on total welfare is unclear. The issue of how to regulate the market and conduct capacity allocation in order to maximise welfare is also as yet unanswered. Addressing these issues, the present paper studies a duopoly market through simulations. It builds on the hypothesis that competition occurs between trains with close departure times. Results indicate that total welfare increases significantly when going from profit-maximising monopoly to competition, as consumers make large gains while operators' profits fall. The way the regulator allocates departure slots has significant importance for market outcomes, including prices, frequencies and total welfare. In particular, it is possible to improve welfare by regulating the succession of departures. If trading in access rights is allowed, a would-be monopolist has incentives to buy its competitors' slots for a price they would accept. A monopolist that uses high frequency of departures as a deterrence strategy against competition increases frequency a lot compared to the profit-maximising level.

On highly used railway lines with heterogeneous traffic, timetabling is challenging. In particular, the limited existing capacity means that to guarantee an acceptable level of quality, the infrastructure manager must cancel some train services on the expense of others. In this article, we study the conflict between commercial long-distance trains and subsidized commuter trains with a socio-economic perspective (i.e. travelers and train operators). The study attempts to answer the following question: What is the socio-economic effect of modifying the timetable of a commuter service?

The case study treats the commuter train services in Stockholm. Trip data was collected from the local commuter train operator. An entropy maximization-based model was implemented to estimate the dynamic network Origin-Destination (OD) matrix. This dynamic matrix, of one full working day, was then used to estimate the number of travelers per train, and further converted for use in the microscopic simulation tool RailSys. Travel and waiting time are estimated for each OD pair and with that the generalized costs for the travelers and operators. The effect of crowding in the trains is included in the estimation. The article can be considered as an initiation to a novel method to calculate effects of changes in commuter train timetables. This novel approach enables to price commercial train slots in the capacity allocation process such as in an auction. It provides a new way to estimate the local train operator´s valuation of the different parameters (i.e. waiting, travel time and interchanges). Using RailSys for the estimation of times makes it possible to include capacity aspects that normally are difficult to reveal.

We have compared Swedish national forecasts for passenger transport produced from 1975 to 2009 with the actual outcomes, and we found substantial differences between forecasts of passenger kilometers by mode and actual outcomes. In forecasts produced since the early 1990 s, road and air traffic growth rates have generally been overpredicted. Aggregate railway growth has been fairly accurate, but commercial long-distance railway growth has been overpredicted, and the growth of subsidized intra-regional railway travel has been underpredicted (following vast unanticipated supply increases). Focusing on car traffic forecasts, we show that a very large share of forecast errors can be explained by input variables turning out to be different than what was assumed in the forecasts. Even the original forecasts are much closer to actual outcomes than simple trendlines would have been, and once the input assumptions are corrected, the forecasts vastly outperform simple trendlines. The potential problems of using cross-sectional models for forecasting intertemporal changes thus seem to be limited. This tentative conclusion is also supported by the finding that elasticities from the cross-sectional models are consistent with those from a time-series model.

One of the most common motivations for public transport investments is to reduce congestion and increase capacity. Public transport congestion leads to crowding discomfort, denied boardings and lower service reliability. However, transit assignment models and appraisal methodologies usually do not account for the dynamics of public transport congestion and crowding and thus potentially underestimate the related benefits. This study develops a method to capture the benefits of increased capacity by using a dynamic and stochastic transit assignment model. Using an agent-based public transport simulation model, we dynamically model the evolution of network reliability and on-board crowding. The model is embedded in a comprehensive framework for project appraisal.A case study of a metro extension that partially replaces an overloaded bus network in Stockholm demonstrates that congestion effects may account for a substantial share of the expected benefits. A cost-benefit analysis based on a conventional static model will miss more than a third of the benefits. This suggests that failure to represent dynamic congestion effects may substantially underestimate the benefits of projects, especially if they are primarily intended to increase capacity rather than to reduce travel times.

Standard cost-benefit analyses of transport policy measures will not capture all benefits and losses if there are labour market imperfections. In the case of congestion charges, theoretical analyses have raised concerns that these effects may constitute considerable losses, possibly to the extent that aggregate welfare is reduced, contrary to conventional wisdom. We investigate this by estimating the effects on labour income of the Stockholm congestion charges, using an estimated relationship between accessibility and income. Results show that effects on labour income are, in fact, positive. It turns out to be crucial that the model accounts for value-of-time heterogeneity.

Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is widely used in public decision making on infrastructure investments. However, the demand forecasts, cost estimates, benefit valuations and effect assessments that are conducted as part of CBAs are all subject to various degrees of uncertainty. The question is to what extent CBAs, given such uncertainties, are still useful as a way to prioritize between infrastructure investments, or put differently, how robust the policy conclusions of CBA are with respect to uncertainties. Using simulations based on real data on national infrastructure plans in Sweden and Norway, we study how investment selection and total realized benefits change when decisions are based on CBA assessments subject to several different types of uncertainty. Our results indicate that realized benefits and investment selection are surprisingly insensitive to all studied types of uncertainty, even for high levels of uncertainty. The two types of uncertainty that affect results the most are uncertainties about investment cost and transport demand. Provided that decisions are based on CBA outcomes, reducing uncertainty is still worthwhile, however, because of the huge sums at stake. Even moderate reductions of uncertainties about unit values, investment costs, future demand and project effects may increase the realized benefits infrastructure investment plans by tens or hundreds of million euros. We conclude that, despite the many types of uncertainties, CBA is able to fairly consistently separate the wheat from the chaff and hence contribute to substantially improved infrastructure decisions.

Many western countries have seen a plateau and subsequent decrease of car travel during the 21st century. What has generated particular interest and debate is the statement that the development cannot be explained by changes in traditional explanatory factors such as GDP and fuel prices. Instead, it has been argued, the observed trends are indications of substantial changes in lifestyles, preferences and attitudes to car travel; what we are experiencing is not just a temporary plateau, but a true “peak car”. However, this study shows that the traditional variables GDP and fuel price are in fact sufficient to explain the observed trends in car traffic in all the countries included in our study: the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Sweden and (to a large extent) Australia and Germany. We argue that the importance of the fuel price increases in the early 2000s has been underappreciated in the studies that shaped the later debate. Results also indicate that GDP elasticities tend to decrease with rising GDP, and that fuel price elasticities tend to increase at high price levels and during periods of rapid price increases.

This paper discusses and analyses whether congestion charges can be considered to be “fair” in different senses of the word. Two different perspectives are distinguished: the consumer perspective and the citizen perspective. The consumer perspective is the traditional one in equity analyses, and includes changes in travel costs, travel times and so on. Using data from four European cities, I show that high-income groups pay more than low-income groups, but low-income groups pay a larger share of their income. I argue that which of these distributional measures is most appropriate depends on the purpose(s) of the charging system. The citizen perspective is about individuals’ views of social issues such as equity, procedural fairness and environmental issues. I argue that an individual can be viewed as a “winner” from a citizen perspective if a reform (such as congestion pricing) is aligned with her views of what is socially desirable. Using the same data set, I analyse to what extent different income groups “win” or “lose” from a citizen perspective – i.e., to what extent congestion pricing is aligned with the societal preferences of high- and low-income groups. It turns out that these differences are small, but overall, middle-income groups “win” the most in this sense.

Introduction Abundant literature now exists on the acceptability of the new pricing measure represented by urban tolls. However, this literature contains few examples providing a "political" analysis of their introduction. Here, our aim is to study how the political behavior of individuals, identified on the basis of general attitudes regarding the principles of regulation and pricing, influences, or does not influence, attitudes with respect to urban tolls.

Method We study the ex-ante determinants of a vote on urban tolls. We use the results of a survey performed in France in the framework of the European Project ExpAcc (Explanatory Factors of Road User Charging Acceptability). We process the data using a Principal Components Analysis (PCA) then perform ordered logit estimation.

Result Regarding the specific question to the referendum, we show that it would be rejected by electors. We also show that there is a significant link between general attitudes to regulation by legislation, tax or pricing policies in transport on the one hand, and the vote in the referendum on tolls on the other. We confirm that individual self-interest matters a lot in political behaviour but that other types of motives also matter strongly

Conclusion As a consequence, a real-life political analysis cannot be limited to classical "economic" variables, even if they matter too obviously. Lastly, our results should be placed in relation with those concerning the more global issue of the acceptability of a new pricing measure through, for example, that of the compensation to be implemented.

We explore how benefit-cost efficiency and electoral support affect road investment decisions in Sweden and Norway. In Norway, neither benefits nor costs seem to affect project selection. In Sweden, civil servants’ decisions are strongly affected by projects’ benefit-cost ratios, with a stronger effect for more expensive projects, while politicians’ decisions are only weakly affected, and only for small projects. In both countries, governments tend to favour investments in regions where they enjoy strong local electoral support. Using cost efficiency as a final selection criterion seems to filter out many inefficient projects already at an early stage of the planning process.

Rapporten är upplagd på följande sätt. I kapitel 2 beskrivs vad som ingår i en samhällsekonomisk kalkyl och hur den tas fram. Kapitel 3 redovisar våra slutsatser om hur samhällsekonomiska kalkyler påverkar beslut om infrastrukturinvesteringar. I kapitel 4 diskuteras vanliga invändningar mot kalkyler, till exempel att inte alla effekter finns med eller att den är att resultatet påverkas starkt av antagande om förutsättningar, till exempel framtida bränslepriser etc. Kapitel 5 diskuterar mer utförligt vad det svaga sambandet mellan samhällsekonomisk effektivitet och beslut kan bero på, vilka problem det kan leda till och vad man skulle kunna göra åt det för att få en effektivare resursanvändning i transportsektorn.

We provide a synthesis of results and insights from the Swedish Value of Time study, with focus on what is relevant for transport appraisal and understanding travel behavior. We summarize recent econometric advances, and show how these enable a better understanding and identification of the value of time distribution. The influence of the sign and size of changes is estimated and discussed, including the problems of loss aversion and the value of small time savings. Further, we show how the value of time depends on trip and traveler characteristics, discuss in what dimensions the value of time should be differentiated in appraisal, and provide recommended values for use in applied transport appraisal.

Cost-benefit analyses (CBA) are often questioned on the grounds that results depend crucially on uncertain assumptions about the future, and on ethically or methodologically contestable trade-offs between different types of benefits. This paper explores the robustness of CBA rankings of transport investments with respect to two types of uncertainties: relative benefit valuations and scenario assumptions related to car ownership, car characteristics and driving costs. The impact of differentiating the value of time with respect to travel mode and purpose is also studied. The study concludes that CBA rankings are robust to all of the studied variations.