43 research outputs found
A Structural Solution to Roaming in Europe
No full textThis paper suggests that international roaming markets suffer from structural flaws in the way that roaming agreements are established in Europe. The initial roaming interventions by the European Commission in 2007 have been very welfare enhancing and the transfer of producer surplus to consumers has brought significant benefits to end users. Nevertheless, there are clear opportunity costs of maintaining and/or extending the current roaming Regulation. The price for wholesale roaming services in a given country is driven principally by the amount of traffic that an operator is willing to send back to the country requesting a price offer and not on the basis of the roaming services requested. The paper suggests that by breaking the link between the prices offered in one country and the volume of returned traffic will enable the wholesale market for international roaming to operate competitively. It is further suggested that retail price regulation is unwarranted when the wholesale market can operate competitively irrespective of the issue of the retail elasticity of demand for these services. Preliminary, suggestions are put forward as to how policy makers could transition from the current regime to a future market based regime by putting a number of required enablers in place.Roaming regulation, mobile telephony, European single market
COVID-19 en transport: Deel 2: een review van factoren van belang voor ontwerp van maatregelen en hun effecten
No full textDe COVID-19 pandemie heeft wereldwijd geleid tot maatregelen gericht op personenmobiliteit (Shortall et al., 2021). In dit paper reviewen we de literatuur over factoren van belang voor het ontwerp van die maatregelen, en de effecten ervan op veiligheid, lichamelijke en geestelijke gezondheid, economie en milieu. Zo’n review is van belang om te begrijpen waarom landen en steden bepaalde maatregelen wel of niet hebben ingevoerd, en waarom die bepaalde effecten hebben gehad. Dat begrip is nuttig voor het ontwerp van nieuw beleid. Factoren die ten grondslag liggen aan de invoering van transport gerelateerde maatregelen, hangen samen met de bredere discussie over COVID-19 maatregelen (o.a. t.a.v. social distancing). Daardoor is het niet mogelijk de zelfstandige invloed van determinanten gericht op transport, op de effecten (virusverspreiding, economie, welbevinden) vast te stellen. Verder blijken effecten van maatregelen sterk te verschillen tussen landen. Belangrijke determinanten voor die effecten zijn (1) socio-economische, (2) culturele, (3) politieke en (4) individuele factoren. Daarnaast blijkt de mate waarin mensen thuis kunnen werken, zeer belangrijk te zijn voor de invoering en effectiviteit van COVID-19 maatregelen. De mate waarin mensen ‘burgerzin’ hebben en vertrouwen in de overheid en instituties speelt een grote rol voor de naleving van adviezen en dwingende maatregelen. Ervaringen met eerdere virussen lijken een positieve bijdrage te hebben geleverd aan succesvol COVID-19 beleid. Een pro-sociale attitude gaat gepaard met een betere naleving. Als mensen de effectiviteit van dergelijke maatregelen hoger inschatten, handelen ze er meer naar. Het paper geeft verder aanbevelingen voor beleid en verder onderzoek.Transport and Logistic
Conflict to Consensus: Contested Notions of Sustainable Rural Tourism on the Island of Ireland
No full textA Structural Solution to Roaming in Europe
No full textFlorence School of RegulationThis paper suggests that international roaming markets suffer from structural flaws in the way that
roaming agreements are established in Europe. The initial roaming interventions by the European
Commission in 2007 have been very welfare enhancing and the transfer of producer surplus to
consumers has brought significant benefits to end users. Nevertheless, there are clear opportunity costs
of maintaining and/or extending the current roaming Regulation. The price for wholesale roaming
services in a given country is driven principally by the amount of traffic that an operator is willing to
send back to the country requesting a price offer and not on the basis of the roaming services
requested. The paper suggests that by breaking the link between the prices offered in one country and
the volume of returned traffic to the other country will enable the wholesale market for international
roaming to operate competitively. It is further suggested that retail price regulation is unwarranted
when the wholesale market can operate competitively irrespective of the issue of the retail elasticity of
demand for these services. Preliminary, suggestions are put forward as to how policy makers could
transition from the current regime to a future market based regime by putting a number of required
enablers in place
The extended gestation and birth of the European Commission's Recommendation on the regulation of fibre networks
No full textPurposeThe purpose of this paper is to set out the history and content of the European Commission's Recommendation on the regulation of next generation access networks, published in September 2010. The aim is to assess the Recommendation in terms of its likely impact on harmonisation and certainty of regulation within the European Union and on investment and competition.Design/methodology/approachThe approach adopted is to review the European Commission's Recommendation from the standpoint of regulatory economics.FindingsThe publication in September 2010 of the Recommendation on the regulation of next generation access networks completed a process which had begun two years and two drafts previously. The paper sets out the background to the decision to prepare a Recommendation for national regulators supervising the installation of fibre based networks, where the fibre might go either to the premises (FTTP) or to the street cabinet (FTTC). It also describes the development of the Recommendation from the first draft in September 2008 to the final draft in September 2010. It concludes that the delay in issuing the Recommendation created an interval in which national regulators pursued their own diverse policies, to the detriment of harmonisation. In terms of investment and competition, the successive drafts appear to have diminished pressure on competitors to build their own infrastructures, with consequential effects on the likely form of competition. Finally, a degree of regulatory uncertainty has been created in member states where the regulator has pursued in its market reviews of fibre access products remedies which are at odds with the Recommendation.Originality/valueThis is an early appraisal of a European Commission Recommendation which is likely to have a significant impact on European communications policy and regulation.</jats:sec
The Insect Crisis
No full textBook Review
Oliver Milman Atlantic Books 2022ISBN: 9781838951177
Reviewed by Chris Shortall
I can’t say I enjoyed this book much. But then any book that lays out in such stark detail the perils facing our insect fauna, and by extension ourselves, cannot be an enjoyable read no matter how well written it is. And this book is very well-written; the language and pacing are such that its chapters can be devoured in short sittings, only with breaks needed to contemplate the horror unfolding in the pages.
The author does take time to outline the perils of alarmism in this context. Chris Thomas is quoted with the concern that “…if people say, ‘insects are declining by 70 percent’ and then it turns out they are only declining by 20%, and everyone says, ‘Oh. Well, that’s alright then’” and there is a somewhat dismissive nod to the notion that more research is needed, especially in areas where we don’t have data. That cautionary note done with, we then get a steady drumbeat of insect doom with the central pair of chapters ‘The Peak of the Pesticide’ and ‘In the Teeth of the Climate Emergency’ and two further chapters, case studies on bees and butterflies — the charismatic microfauna, laying the blame for the crisis squarely at the feet of agriculture and fossil fuels.
The book is generally well-researched, although many Royal Entomological Society members will raise an eyebrow at the assertion that the Krefeld Entomology Society were “the only ones” making long-term standardised surveys of insects. I also found that the reference list contains many references to news reports on scientific papers rather than the papers themselves.
There are some seeds of hope sown through the crop of despair that Milman has cultivated here. In the penultimate chapter ‘The Inaction Plan’ it is noted how quickly insect populations have been seen to bounce back at the Knepp project and in roadside verges that lay unmown during the Covid pandemic. Even here the pessimism remains, as the need for allowing wild spaces for insects to thrive, or at the very least to survive, is placed against the need to feed a planet of 8–10 billion people and the pressure that places on our environment.
In summary, nothing in this book should be a surprise to the members of this Society. But then this book isn’t aimed at us. It is aimed at the general public with a view to opening their eyes to the crisis that is unfolding around them. I think it does that, but perhaps may go too far in ladling on the apocalyptic narrative — reading this book gave me no hope for the future and a sense that we are powerless to avert the impending catastrophe — and as such I would hesitate to recommend it
COVID-19 en transport: Deel 1: een review van maatregelen wereldwijd
No full textAls reactie op de COVID-19 pandemie zijn wereldwijd veel transport gerelateerde maatregelen getroffen, en die maatregelen hebben vele maatschappelijk relevante effecten gehad. Doel van dit paper is de literatuur te reviewen die tot eind 2020 over dit onderwerp beschikbaar was. Het is daarmee een tussentijdse stand van zaken. De review beoogt een overzicht van getroffen maatregelen en hun effecten te geven, en te reflecteren op de vraag welke kennis er momenteel beschikbaar is en wat daarvan de merites zijn, en een korte onderzoekagenda te presenteren. Dit paper stelt een indeling voor van COVID-19 maatregelen gericht op personenmobiliteit. We onderscheiden de categorieën ‘vermijden van verplaatsingen’, ‘veranderen van vervoerwijzen’ en ‘verbeteren van de kwaliteit’. Per categorie onderscheiden we verschillende soorten maatregelen en effecten. Vervolgens reviewen we de literatuur op dit terrein, waarna we de beleidsrelevantie van onze bevindingen bediscussiëren,. We concluderen dat brede beoordelingen van maatregelen op alle maatschappelijk relevante effecten nauwelijks voorkomen. Verder ontbreken vaak integrale beschouwingen over gezondheidseffecten, rekening houdend met directe effecten (virusoverdracht) en indirecte effecten (zoals gerelateerd aan stress en beweging).Transport and Logistic
COVID-19 passenger transport measures and their impacts
No full textGovernments all over the world have had to implement various policy measures in order to curb the spread of COVID-19, impacting many people's lives and livelihoods. Combinations of measures targeting the transportation sector and other aspects of social life have been implemented with varying degrees of success in different countries. This paper proposes a classification of COVID-19 measures aimed at passenger mobility. We distinguish the categories “avoidance of travel”, “modal shift” and “improvement of quality”. Per category, we distinguish different types of measures and effects (social, economic and environmental). Next, we review the literature on COVID-19 measures for passenger mobility, after which we discuss the policy relevance of our findings and propose a research agenda. We conclude that broad or integral assessments of measures on all socially relevant effects are rare. Also, few studies exist to determine the effects of individual measures and deal with combinations of measures instead. Studies on social or economic effects focus on partial direct effects (e.g. turnover of the transport sector, effect of mobility measures on commuter traffic) and do not elaborate on indirect effects (e.g. changes in household expenditure, stress levels). Finally, there is a greater focus in the literature on intermediary health indicators (e.g. travel behaviour) but less on the actual spread of COVID-19 or indeed on other indirect health effects of measures (e.g. due to air pollution, more exercise, etc).Transport and Logistic
The development of a multi-level benchmark framework for evaluating public participation
No full textThe growing call for public participation in the context of the energy transition has been accompanied by an upswing in the number of studies evaluating participatory practices. While this is essentially a positive, and even necessary, development in our understanding of what makes good public participation, the practical usability of the existing frameworks for evaluating public participation is insufficient to meet demand. This thesis aims to fill this gap by developing a multi-level benchmark framework for evaluating public participation in line with policy-makers’ demands for participatory approaches. On the basis of a conceptual and an empirical investigation, five categories of successful public participation were identified: intended outcomes, resource minimisation, democracy, citizen satisfaction, and ease of participation. These five comprise the highest-level elements of the developed framework. The research concludes with some avenues for further research on public participation.Complex Systems Engineering and Management (CoSEM
