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Quantifying Benefits of Universal Design in Public Transport
Full text linkVeisten, K., Flügel, S. and Fearnley, N. 2024. Quantifying benefits of universal design in public transport in Universal Design 2024: Shaping a Sustainable, Equitable and Resilient Future for All. K.S. Fuglerud et al. (Eds.), Vol. 320, 314-312.Universal design (UD) relates to many aspects of public transport (PT), comprising the vehicles/wagons, stops/stations, and access/egress to/from stops. While some UD elements are decisive for relatively few, others enhance the overall PT quality and subsequently improve the well-being of many users. If the service quality is improved, some users will be willing to pay more, either in terms of ticket price or travel time. Improved UD elements in PT therefore increase social benefits for public transport users, in economic terms, even if ticket costs are maintained unchanged. PT users in Norway have been asked to choose between journey alternatives with varying levels of UD elements between the alternatives. These UD elements comprised: a) on-board facilities and driver quality; b) stop/station qualities: shelter, seating, safety, lighting, information; and c) the qualities of the area surrounding stops/stations: road surface quality / icing, lighting, facilities/amenities, information. In total, 25 UD qualities were assessed, in addition to travel time. Fare was one of the varying elements in the journey alternatives, enabling estimation of willingness to pay (WTP) for UD quality improvements. The WTP yields benefit estimates of improvements that can be assessed against the costs of upgrading, maintaining, and running these UD-related elements in PT. More than 2000 respondents participated in our web-based survey. Almost one in five reported special needs when travelling by PT. Comparing those reporting special needs against those not reporting needs/difficulties, we find that their WTP is similar for most UD qualities, but WTP differs on some particular UD elements. Those reporting needs/difficulties show higher WTP for improved cleaning and air quality on board, and for benches and highly visible real-time departure info at stops/stations. All PT users have high WTP for improved access, without detours, to stops/stations, that have shelter and de-iced road surface. Overall, our findings provide a case for increased focus on UD in economic assessments of PT.Quantifying Benefits of Universal Design in Public TransportacceptedVersio
EU's “three-in-seven” road haulage cabotage rule – Impact imbalances across member states and the geography
No full textJostein Tvedt, EU's “three-in-seven” road haulage cabotage rule – Impact imbalances across member states and the geography,
Transport Policy, Volume 159, 2024, Pages 57-66, ISSN 0967-070X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2024.10.004.Road cabotage within the EU, as a share of domestic transport of goods, varies greatly across member states. This can partly be attributed to EU's regime for consecutive cabotage. In addition to economic factors that reflect incomplete market integration, spatial factors appear to affect the impact of the current regime. The impact seems stronger for geographically large and centrally located countries with interregional homogeneity in trade. This may reflect that foreign hauliers under such conditions can utilize the characteristics of their standardized long-range trucks better, or because the likelihood of successfully fixing three favourable long-distance cabotage assignments within the seven days limit increases. Potential amendments to regulations in order to equalize the impact of EU's consecutive cabotage regime across member states' spatial characteristics include removing the limits to the number of trips within the seven days' time frame or shortening the time frame for carrying out the current maximum of three trips.publishedVersio
Universal Design in Sustainable Tourism Certification Schemes
Full text linkLanda-Mata, I., Blumenthal, V., Nielsen, A. F. (2024). Universal Design in Sustainable Tourism Certification Schemes, in Universal Design 2024: Shaping a Sustainable, Equitable and Resilient Future for All, K.S. Fuglerud et al. (Eds.), Vol. 320, 363-370.
doi: 10.3233/SHTI241028 by IOS PressUniversal design has played a modest role in Norwegian tourism policy, despite its potential for contributing to a more socially, economically and environmentally sustainable tourism industry. The increased interest in sustainability labeling schemes among tourism actors represents an opportunity to work towards universal design of tourism, provided these schemes encompass universal design criteria. Standards for universal design are important in creating recognizable solutions, not least for visitors who often consume services across different sectors in unfamiliar environments. Against this background, we investigated whether sustainable tourism labeling schemes include suggestions made in standards for universal design. Based on previous research on universal design in the transport sector, a coding structure was constructed and used to analyze a sample of 13 tourism-related standards for universal design and five sustainability labeling schemes used by Norwegian tourism actors. Findings show that labeling schemes for sustainable tourism to a very limited extent incorporate measures described in standards for universal design. Moreover, both labeling schemes and standards are primarily aimed at the physical environment rather than the organizational or social environments, and both dedicate little attention to employees. Nevertheless, standards for universal design comprise a much wider range of measures and user-groups. Integrating them into popular sustainability labeling schemes seems pertinent to raise awareness and foster practices that contribute to improve universal design of tourism.Universal Design in Sustainable Tourism Certification SchemesacceptedVersio
Imagining post-fossil tourism mobilities with Norwegian tourists
Full text linkHopkins, D., Landa-Mata, I., Kr Steen Jacobsen, J., Farstad, E., & Higham, J. (2024). Imagining post-fossil tourism mobilities with Norwegian tourists. Social & Cultural Geography, 25(9), 1395–1416. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2024.2327304Sustainable mobility has become a catch-all term to describe forms, modes, policies and practices of mobility that are thought to have a lower environmental footprint and/or fewer social exclusions than the contemporary mobility system which is reliant on fossil fuels and private ownership. As a result, its main application has been in urban mobility contexts, often focused on everyday commuting journeys. In this paper we re-visit sustainable mobilities through the lens of tourism sustainabilities, a concept that opens space for multiple, contingent operations of sustainability for tourism mobilities. We draw empirically from qualitative interviews with 26 residents from Oslo (Norway) undertaken in 2020 to answer two questions: (1) How are tourism sustainabilities imagined and enacted by residents of the Oslo region, Norway, and (2) What (re)imaginings of tourism sustainabilities are made possible? Attentive to the sociomaterial nature of tourism sustainabilities and drawing from critical sustainabilities scholarship, we present three enactments of tourism mobilities: Forming sustainabilities; Fragmenting sustainabilities; Fracturing sustainabilities, and three (re)imaginings: Stripped Back; Having a Go; Stuck in the Mud. The social geographies of tourism mobilities are made visible, and these open space for an expansive reading of sustainable mobilities which may enable deeper understandings of the possibilities for alternative forms of mobility in a climate constrained world.Imagining post-fossil tourism mobilities with Norwegian touristsacceptedVersio
Local Incentives and Electric Vehicle Adoption
Full text linkAccepted for publication by Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists on Nov. 25th, 2024, Local Incentives and Electric Vehicle Adoption, Volume 12, Number 1, January 2025, https://doi.org/10.1086/730590We study how the adoption of battery electric vehicles—a key technology for decarbonizing transportation—responds to two local incentives: road toll exemption and bus lane access. Combining rich Norwegian microdata with a quasi-experimental research design where we exploit household-level variations in incentives on work commutes, we find sizable and positive effects on electric vehicle ownership. The increase in electric vehicles from having road tolls and bus lanes on work commutes is, on average, offset by a similar decline in the ownership of conventional vehicles. Still, road toll exposure increases total car ownership among the richest households. Road tolls also reduce “brown” driving per vehicle, but lower CO2 emissions are largely due to the reduction in the number of conventional vehicles.Local Incentives and Electric Vehicle AdoptionacceptedVersio
Company cars and household car choices
No full textGøril L. Andreassen, Askill Harkjerr Halse, Company cars and household car choices, Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, Volume 135, 2024, 104384, ISSN 1361-9209, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2024.104384.Tax systems that favour company cars for personal use could cause households to have more cars. It could also affect the choice of fuel type. We investigate the relationship between household car choices and access to a company car through a difference-in-differences design using Norwegian microdata. We find that access to a company car is associated with an increase in the total number of cars and the number of combustion-engine cars. For electric cars, the results are inconclusive. However, wage growth and access to company cars are also positively correlated. Therefore, we cannot interpret the difference in the number of cars between the treatment and control groups as a causal effect of the company car scheme, but as a correlation. Still, existing evidence on the income elasticity of car demand suggests that the increase in the number of cars is unlikely to be driven by wage growth alone.Company cars and household car choicespublishedVersio
Factors influencing whether safety management systems are living after extensive reforms: An analysis of four Norwegian county authorities
No full textTor-Olav Nævestad, Vibeke Milch, Jenny Blom, Rune Elvik, Markus Bugge, Håkon Endresen Normann, Erland Skogli, Lars Even Egner, Factors influencing whether safety management systems are living after extensive reforms: An analysis of four Norwegian county authorities, Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Volume 28, 2024, 101241, ISSN 2590-1982, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trip.2024.101241.Norwegian county authorities’ management of road safety has undergone major changes since 2020, when a structural reform was implemented. County authorities merged into fewer administrative units, and took over the responsibility for administering the county roads. Because of this, county authorities had to establish new systems for managing road safety. The aims of the study are to examine: 1) Whether four county authorities have implemented living systems for road safety management, three years after the 2020 regional reform, and 2) Factors influencing whether safety management systems are living, including the impact of extensive reforms. The study is based on qualitative research interviews (n = 42) and an online survey (n = 392). The extent to which the county authorities have managed to implement living safety management systems and maintain their key road safety roles differs substantially. Multivariate analyses show that the most important factors influencing whether county authorities have been able to implement living systems are the safety cultures in the county authorities, and the extent to which respondents believe that the reorganizations related to the structural reform have required a lot of time and energy.Factors influencing whether safety management systems are living after extensive reforms: An analysis of four Norwegian county authoritiespublishedVersio
Safety effects of bypass lanes at unsignalized three-leg junctions
No full textAlena Katharina Høye, Ingeborg Storesund Hesjevoll, Rune Elvik, Safety effects of bypass lanes at unsignalized three-leg junctions,
Accident Analysis & Prevention, Volume 203, 2024, 107643, ISSN 0001-4575, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2024.107643.Bypass lanes are a low-cost measure to increase capacity at unsignalized T-junctions without left-turn lanes that allow through-traffic to pass left-turning vehicles on the right. There is very limited knowledge about the safety effects of bypass lanes. We found six previous studies that could be summarized by means of meta-analysis, and the results show an average accident reduction of 10 percent. However, the results from previous studies are inconsistent and may be biased. Therefore, the present study has estimated safety effects of by-pass lanes in Norway, based on a sample of 2,227 T-junctions (incl. 94 with bypass-lanes) for which relevant data was available for a period of up to 10 years. We developed accident prediction models and conducted before-after analyses. The accident prediction models show that junctions with bypass lanes have 82 percent more accidents than junctions without bypass lanes, when controlling for endogeneity. Endogeneity occurs when the implementation of a measure is conditional on the frequency of crashes, as has been the case with bypass lanes. The before-after analysis shows that average accident numbers decrease after the installation of bypass lanes. However, when controlling for regression-to-the-mean (RTM), average accident numbers increase. RTM means that accident numbers would have been likely to decrease even without any measure because they had been exceptionally high in the before period. The control for potential biases in our study is likely to contribute to the discrepancy between results from our study and previous studies, most of which have not controlled for the same potential biases. We conclude therefore that bypass lanes, although favorable for capacity, are likely to be unfavorable for safety when compared to other unsignalized T-junctions without left-turn lanes. Unfavorable safety effects may partly be due to site specific conditions, such as road alignment and sight conditions, that contribute to rear-end collision risk or inappropriate driver behavior. However, this does not necessarily mean that bypass lanes never should be used. For example, at junctions where a bypass lane may solve capacity problems, and where site-specific conditions are favorable, bypass lanes may still be an acceptable solution.Safety effects of bypass lanes at unsignalized three-leg junctionspublishedVersio
Innovation and traffic safety: analysis of four Norwegian county authorities
Full text linkNævestad, T.-O., Milch, V., Blom, J., Elvik, R., Bugge, M., Endresen Normann, H., … Egner, L. E. (2024). Innovation and traffic safety: analysis of four Norwegian county authorities. Traffic Safety Research, 5, 000038. https://doi.org/10.55329/ntgl3123This study examines the relationships between traffic safety innovations, innovation culture, and safety culture in four Norwegian county authorities three years after a comprehensive structural reform. Following the reform, the county authorities had to establish new organisations, routines, and systems. The study is based on qualitative interviews (N = 42) and a quantitative survey (n = 392) among people who work with traffic safety and/or mobility in the county authorities. The qualitative results show in particular that the respondents have gained new perspectives on traffic safety as a result of being co-organised with new professional groups. Additionally, we see examples of new methods and new forms of collaboration in traffic safety being implemented. The survey results show statistically significant differences between the county authorities' scores on an index for traffic safety innovations. County authorities' scores on this index is predicted by the county authorities' innovation culture, which in turn is predicted by safety culture. This indicates that innovation culture should be understood as an aspect of a learning safety culture. We find statistically significant differences between county authorities with respect to how demanding the organizational changes related to the regional reform have been for the county authorities studied. The results from this study can also be useful for change processes in other organisations.Innovation and traffic safety: analysis of four Norwegian county authoritiespublishedVersio
Mitigating simultaneity bias in seaport efficiency measurement
No full textKenneth Løvold Rødseth, Timo Kuosmanen, Rasmus Bøgh Holmen, Mitigating simultaneity bias in seaport efficiency measurement, Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Volume 192, 2025, 104333, ISSN 0965-8564,Seaport efficiency measurement is one of the most popular topics in maritime economics. Studies within this research area have not paid attention to the well-known simultaneity bias in productivity and efficiency measurement that can lead to inconsistent estimates of best practices. This paper investigates simultaneity in seaport efficiency measurement and proposes a novel strategy to mitigate the bias by exploiting the relationship between port efficiency and choice, another key topic within the maritime literature. A non-parametric framework for joint estimation of production and control functions subject to shape constraints is further developed. Contrary to comparable methods for controlling for simultaneity, the new method does not require multiple steps and rigorous assumptions about the error term to retrieve the port production function. An empirical investigation is provided for the eight largest container ports in Norway to showcase presence and mitigation of simultaneity bias in efficiency analysis of seaports.Mitigating simultaneity bias in seaport efficiency measurementpublishedVersio