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Environmental and transport effects of warehouse relocationing: evidence from Norway
Get PDFReducing traffic volumes and CO2-emissions from freight transport has proven difficult in many countries. Although the increasing suburbanization of warehouses is seen as a relevant land use trend, comprehensive analyses of their impact remain scarce. This study uses real data in modeling transport, costs, environmental and modal effects from warehouse relocations around Oslo and Trondheim (Norway). Results indicate that for Oslo, traffic performance (ton-km), CO2-emissions, and transport costs increase following warehouse suburbanization. For Trondheim, transport performance and CO2-emissions increase less, while transport costs decrease marginally. We conclude that specific case characteristics (geography and trade patterns) are important in determining the strength and direction of effects, and expect that common concomitant developments (warehouse centralization and consolidation) would lead to more pronounced results. Our findings confirm some, but challenge other, findings from the relatively scarcely literature available. Finally, the study's more general insights and observations can help advance similar analyses beyond Norway.submittedVersio
Environmental effects of a vehicle tax reform: Empirical evidence from Norway
Get PDFIn 2007, the Norwegian government reformed the vehicle registration tax in order toreduce the carbon intensity of the new car fleet by incentivizing the purchase of more fuel efficient cars. This paper identifies the impact of the new tax structure on three main dimensions: (i) the average CO2 emissions intensity of new registered vehicles, (ii) the relative change in sales between low and highCO2-intensive cars and (iii) the market share of diesel cars. The results show that the average CO2 intensity of new vehicles was reduced by about 7.5g of CO2/km in the year of the implementation of the reform. This reduction is the result of a 12 percentage points drop in the share of highCO2-intensive vehicles and of an increase of about 20 percentage points in the market share of diesel cars.acceptedVersio
The climate, economic and equity effects of fuel tax, road toll and commuter tax credit
Get PDFState-of-the-art travel demand models for Norway have been run with the aim of revealing the equity effects of selected policy measures for greenhouse gas abatement. The Oslo Intercity Regional Model, comprising roughly 43 per cent of Norway's five million population, was used to study short distance trips in southeastern Norway, i. e. in and around the capital city of Oslo. The NTM6 model for domestic, long distance travel was used to analyze domestic trips longer than 70 km one way. Both of these are network models of travel demand, predicting car ownership, trip frequency, destination choice, mode choice and route choice under user specified input assumptions. The following three policy options have been studied: (i) tripled toll rates and ferry fares everywhere in Norway, (ii) a NOK 0.20 (= € 0.024) per vehicle km road charge or equivalently higher fuel tax, and (iii) abolishment of the commuter tax credit, which in 2014 amounted to roughly € 0.05 per km for long-distance commuters. By design, these three policy options give rise to similar reductions in CO2 emissions from travel. While option (i) turns out to be highly inefficient, options (ii) and (iii) appear, in a partial travel demand analysis, to be welfare increasing even before CO2 abatement benefits. However, when the policy options are ordered according to their equity effects, the ranking becomes completely reversed. The abolishment of the commuter tax credit appears to hit people in low income neighbourhoods five to fifteen times harder than those living in high income zones. The fuel tax increase gives rise to corresponding inequity ratios between three and seven. The main explanation is that residents of remote, low income areas generally sustain longer commutes, and also to a larger extent depend on their cars for commuting than do workers in densely populated urban or suburban districts.acceptedVersio
A comparison of bus passengers' and car drivers' valuation of casualty risk reductions in their routes
Get PDFIntroduction
The economic value of safety represents an important guide to transport policy, and more studies on individuals’ valuation of road safety are called for. This paper presents a stated preference study of the value of preventing fatal and serious injuries involving bus passengers and car drivers in road accidents.
Objectives
Former valuation studies based on travel behaviour and route choice have involved primarily car drivers. Our study also included bus passengers, thus providing a comparison of two types of transport mode users. Moreover, the comparison was based on two different valuation methods.
Methodology
About 600 bus passengers and nearly 2300 car users from different areas of Norway reported a recent trip, described by its distance and travel cost. Then they answered stated choice tasks that took a reference in the reported trip and involved trade-offs among travel time, fatal and seriously injured victims and travel costs. Afterwards, they faced a simple trade-off between travel costs, and fatal and seriously injured victims.
Findings
Pooling the data from the two stated preference formats, we derived values of a statistical life and of a statistical seriously injured victim. Regarding the value of statistical life, our point estimates were NOK 45.5 million and NOK 58.3 million for bus users and car users respectively.
Discussion
The point estimates for bus passengers and car users were not statistically different given their confidence intervals. Thus, we recommend the use of a single value, identical for both modes of transport, for the prevention of a statistical fatality as well as for a statistical injuryacceptedVersio
Production and protection. Seafarers’ handling of pressure in gemeinschaft and gesellshaft
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Silos as barriers to public sector climate adaptation and preparedness: insights from road closures in Norway
Get PDFOrganisational perspectives propose that structural arrangements affect policy outcomes. Drawing on these perspectives, it is worthwhile to find out whether and how disagreements among public authorities create barriers to public sector adaptation and preparedness. As the literature on weather vulnerabilities and climate adaptation recommends increased public sector coordination, exploring the possibilities of governance can contribute to the improvement of lifeline conditions. Insights from a Norwegian case study suggest that the different mandates of responsible public authorities sometimes clash. Such clashes limit the abilities to sustain welfare and business conditions when avalanches and blizzards cause highway outages. The findings also show that governance might only partly improve public sector peril response measures, as there is rarely sufficient flexibility to consider specific interests or preferences, for example, to keep a highway open until a school bus or a freight delivery has passed.Silos as barriers to public sector climate adaptation and preparedness: insights from road closures in NorwaypublishedVersio
Interpreting interaction effects in estimates of the risk of traffic injury associated with the use of illicit drugs
Get PDFInteractions characterise the relationship between use of amphetamines, cannabis and opiates as a driver and the risk of traffic injury associated with the use of these drugs. Inverse risk curves have been found for these drugs, meaning that the higher the proportion of drivers in normal traffic testing positive for the drugs, the lower is the increase in risk associated with them. The inverse risk curves can arise in many ways. The paper discusses ten different interpretations of the curves; seven of these are methodological and claim that the risk curves are statistical artefacts. Some support for these interpretations is found; however, this does not rule out that substantive interpretations, proposing causal mechanisms underlying the curves may also be correct. Unfortunately, there is insufficient evidence to assess the support for the substantive interpretations. There is, accordingly, a large element of uncertainty about how the inverse risk curves arise and whether they can be modified.acceptedVersio
Embodied Energy, Costs and Traffic in Different Settlement Patterns – Travel behaviour, housing and location preferences
Get PDFThe objective of this report is to provide a state-of-the-art review on relevant existing studies that could be used as a background for tool development and guidelines in the EE settlement project. The report investigates how different dwelling types and settlement patterns affect travel behaviour, including travel mode choice and travelled distances, to create the basis for assessment of residents’ transport energy needs in the project. Furthermore, an overview of mobility within and between municipalities for different age groups, and the motives for their movement, is evaluated to provide a basis for housing and location preferences among households. The report highlights the limitations of existing approaches and helps define the scope for further work in the EE settlement project.publishedVersio
The safety ladder: developing an evidence-based safety management strategy for small road transport companies
Get PDFTraffic accidents account for between 20% and 40% of work-related accidents in industrial countries, and research indicates that road transport companies often have little focus on organisational safety management (OSM). There is thus a huge and largely untapped road safety potential in improving the safety of people who drive in their work, by focusing on OSM. Road transport companies in European countries are often small, however, with limited resources in terms of time, financial resources and competence on road safety. The main aim of the present article is therefore to develop an OSM strategy for small road transport companies. Based on a systematic literature review, taking Norwegian research as its point of departure, the article concludes that four measures seem to be most realistic for small goods-transport businesses, and that these measures seem to have the greatest safety potential. These four measures can be arranged on a ladder, where businesses start at the lowest and most basic level, before proceeding to the next step. While our stepwise safety-ladder approach has not been validated, it is expected that further research would confirm the value of the strategy proposed.publishedVersio
Smartphones, travel time-use, and attitudes to public transport services. Insights from an explorative study of urban dwellers in two Norwegian cities
Get PDFThe uptake of mobile media with internet connection has increased rapidly in almost every part of the world, and this has significantly changed how public transport passengers use their travel time. Studies have documented that use of mobile information and communication technologies (ICT) while traveling has the potential to enrich use of travel time and in some cases, strengthen positive attitudes towards public transport. The alternative hypothesis—that mobile communication technologies make travelers more critical and demanding, e.g., due to the risk of interference—has so far hardly been explored through empirical studies. Based on a web-based survey of travelers in two of the largest cities in Norway (Oslo and Trondheim), this paper investigates how use of smart devices are related to general attitudes toward public transportation services. A segmentation of travelers in three clusters based on their mobile use habits, shows that the most active group of mobile media users—a group of younger and middle-aged urban dwellers—were those who bore the most critical attitudes to the public transport services. In contrast, the groups that used their mobile phones rarely, or less actively, on their public transport trips were more satisfied. The findings suggests that a new generation of “equipped travelers” has developed expectations regarding their public transport journeys that service providers might have problems to fulfill in current times. Thus, there is a risk of the most active smartphone users developing negative attitudes to public transport if (or when) their experiences are not improved.submittedVersio