363-1047-00L  Economics of Urban Transportation

SemesterAutumn Semester 2018
LecturersA. Russo
Periodicityyearly recurring course
Language of instructionEnglish


AbstractThe first part of the course will present some basic principles of transportation economics, applied to the main issues in urban transport policy (e.g. road pricing, public transport tariffs, investment in infrastructure etc.). The second part of the course will consider some case studies where we will apply the tools acquired in the first part to actual policy issues.
ObjectiveThe main objective of this course is to provide students with some basic tools to analyze transport policy decisions from an economic perspective. Can economics help us reduce road congestion problems? Should drivers be asked to pay for using urban roads? Should public transport tariffs depend on how roads are priced? How should the investment in transport infrastructure be financed? These are some of the questions that students should be able to tackle after completing the course.
ContentCOURSE OUTLINE (preliminary):

1. Introduction
2. Travel demand :
a. travel cost and value of time
b. mode choice
3. Road congestion and first-best pricing
a. Static congestion model
b. Dynamic congestion models
c. Examples: London Congestion Charge, Stockholm Congestion Charge
4. Second-best pricing
a. Pricing roads with unpriced alternatives. Examples: tolled and toll-free highways
b. Public transport: pricing with road congestion and with (or without) road tolls
5. Investment in infrastructure: public transport and roads
a. Roads: Investment with and without pricing
b. induced demand
c. Economies of scale/density in public transport
6. Topics:
a. Political economy of road pricing: why do we see road pricing in so few cities (London, Stockholm...) and not in many other cities (NYC, Manchester, Paris...)?
b. What are the alternatives to road pricing to reduce congestion? Parking tariffs, traffic regulation (speed bumps, low emission zones), road space reduction. Examples: Zurich, San Francisco (SFPark), Paris.
c. Transport and land use: value of housing and transport services. Road congestion, transport subsidies and urban sprawl.
Lecture notesCourse slides will be made available to students prior to each class.
LiteratureSYLLABUS (preliminary):

course slides will be made available to students.

Additional material:

Part 1 to 5: textbook: Small and Verhoef (The economics of urban transportation, 2007).

Part 6: Topics to be covered on research papers/case studies.