Transport economics is a branch of economics founded in 1959 by American economist John R. Meyer that deals with the allocation of resources within the transport sector. It has strong links to civil engineering. Transport economics differs from some other branches of economics in that the assumption of a spaceless, instantaneous economy does not hold. People and goods flow over networks at certain speeds. Demands peak. Advance ticket purchase is often induced by lower fares. The networks themselves may or may not be competitive. A single trip may require the bundling of services provided by several firms, agencies and modes.
In computer science and optimization theory, the max-flow min-cut theorem states that in a flow network, the maximum amount of flow passing from the source to the sink is equal to the total weight of the edges in a minimum cut, i.e., the smallest total weight of the edges which if removed would disconnect the source from the sink.
Road pricing are direct charges levied for the use of roads, including road tolls, distance or time-based fees, congestion charges and charges designed to discourage the use of certain classes of vehicle, fuel sources or more polluting vehicles. These charges may be used primarily for revenue generation, usually for road infrastructure financing, or as a transportation demand management tool to reduce peak hour travel and the associated traffic congestion or other social and environmental negative externalities associated with road travel such as air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, visual intrusion, noise pollution and road traffic collisions.
Traffic congestion is a condition in transport that is characterized by slower speeds, longer trip times, and increased vehicular queueing. Traffic congestion on urban road networks has increased substantially since the 1950s. When traffic demand is great enough that the interaction between vehicles slows the speed of the traffic stream, this results in some congestion. While congestion is a possibility for any mode of transportation, this article will focus on automobile congestion on public roads.
Cost–benefit analysis (CBA), sometimes also called benefit–cost analysis, is a systematic approach to estimating the strengths and weaknesses of alternatives. It is used to determine options which provide the best approach to achieving benefits while preserving savings in, for example, transactions, activities, and functional business requirements. A CBA may be used to compare completed or potential courses of action, and to estimate or evaluate the value against the cost of a decision, project, or policy. It is commonly used to evaluate business or policy decisions, commercial transactions, and project investments. For example, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission must conduct cost-benefit analyses before instituting regulations or deregulations.
Carpooling is the sharing of car journeys so that more than one person travels in a car, and prevents the need for others to have to drive to a location themselves.
In economics, induced demand – related to latent demand and generated demand – is the phenomenon whereby an increase in supply results in a decline in price and an increase in consumption. In other words, as a good or service becomes more readily available and mass produced, its price goes down and consumers are more likely to buy it, meaning that demand subsequently increases. This is consistent with the economic theory of supply and demand.
In thermodynamics, an isobaric process is a type of thermodynamic process in which the pressure of the system stays constant: ΔP = 0. The heat transferred to the system does work, but also changes the internal energy (U) of the system. This article uses the physics sign convention for work, where positive work is work done by the system. Using this convention, by the first law of thermodynamics,
The Certificate of Entitlement (COE) is the quota licence for owning a vehicle in the city-state of Singapore. The licence is obtained from a successful winning bid in an open bid uniform price auction which grants the legal right of the holder to register, own and use a vehicle in Singapore for a period of 10 years. When demand is high, the cost of a COE can exceed the value of the car itself.
Intermodal passenger transport, also called mixed-mode commuting, involves using two or more modes of transportation in a journey. Mixed-mode commuting is often used to combine the strengths of various transportation options. A major goal of modern intermodal passenger transport is to reduce dependence on the automobile as the major mode of ground transportation and increase use of public transport. To assist the traveller, various intermodal journey planners such as Rome2rio and Google Transit have been devised to help travellers plan and schedule their journey.
Monetization is, broadly speaking, the process of converting something into money. The term has a broad range of uses. In banking, the term refers to the process of converting or establishing something into legal tender. While it usually refers to the coining of currency or the printing of banknotes by central banks, it may also take the form of a promissory currency. The term "monetization" may also be used informally to refer to exchanging possessions for cash or cash equivalents, including selling a security interest, charging fees for something that used to be free, or attempting to make money on goods or services that were previously unprofitable or had been considered to have the potential to earn profits. And data monetization refers to a spectrum of ways information assets can be converted into economic value.
In mathematics and transportation engineering, traffic flow is the study of interactions between travellers and infrastructure, with the aim of understanding and developing an optimal transport network with efficient movement of traffic and minimal traffic congestion problems.
In thermodynamics, the thermal efficiency is a dimensionless performance measure of a device that uses thermal energy, such as an internal combustion engine, steam turbine, steam engine, boiler, furnace, refrigerator, ACs etc.
In transport economics, the value of time is the opportunity cost of the time that a traveler spends on their journey. In essence, this makes it the amount that a traveler would be willing to pay in order to save time, or the amount they would accept as compensation for lost time.
The vehicle routing problem (VRP) is a combinatorial optimization and integer programming problem which asks "What is the optimal set of routes for a fleet of vehicles to traverse in order to deliver to a given set of customers?" It generalises the travelling salesman problem (TSP). It first appeared in a paper by George Dantzig and John Ramser in 1959, in which the first algorithmic approach was written and was applied to petrol deliveries. Often, the context is that of delivering goods located at a central depot to customers who have placed orders for such goods. The objective of the VRP is to minimize the total route cost. In 1964, Clarke and Wright improved on Dantzig and Ramser's approach using an effective greedy algorithm called the savings algorithm.
In public transportation, schedule adherence or on-time performance refers to the level of success of the service remaining on the published schedule. On time performance, sometimes referred to as on time running, is normally expressed as a percentage, with a higher percentage meaning more vehicles are on time. The level of on time performance for many transport systems is a very important measure of the effectiveness of the system.
The London Low Emission Zone (LEZ) is a traffic pollution charge scheme with the aim of reducing the exhaust gas emissions of diesel-powered vehicles in London. The scheme applies London-wide to commercial vehicles, and should not be confused with the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), introduced in April 2019, which applies to all vehicles in Central London. Vehicles that do not conform to various emission standards are charged; the others may enter the controlled zone free of charge. The low emission zone started operating on 4 February 2008 with phased introduction of an increasingly stricter regime until 3 January 2012. The scheme is administered by the Transport for London executive agency within the Greater London Authority.
Passengers per hour per direction (p/h/d), passengers per hour in peak direction (pphpd) or corridor capacity is a measure of the route capacity of a rapid transit or public transport system.
The Three-detector problem is a problem in traffic flow theory. Given is a homogeneous freeway and the vehicle counts at two detector stations. We seek the vehicle counts at some intermediate location. The method can be applied to incident detection and diagnosis by comparing the observed and predicted data, so a realistic solution to this problem is important. Newell G.F. proposed a simple method to solve this problem. In Newell's method, one gets the cumulative count curve (N-curve) of any intermediate location just by shifting the N-curves of the upstream and downstream detectors. Newell's method was developed before the variational theory of traffic flow was proposed to deal systematically with vehicle counts. This article shows how Newell's method fits in the context of variational theory.
A radial route is a public transport route linking a central point in a city or town, usually in the central business district (CBD), with a suburb of that city or town. Such a route can be operated by various forms of public transport, including commuter rail, rapid transit, trams (streetcars), trolleybuses, or motor buses.
