Development of an interactive platform for green transport policy evaluation
Climate change is one of the most prominent concerns for the future of humanity in the 21st century. The presence of humanity in the planet may be viewed as precarious, especially when considering the adverse effects of human activity and development. The current scenario predictions for year 2100 i...
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| Κύριοι συγγραφείς: | , |
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| Άλλοι συγγραφείς: | |
| Γλώσσα: | English |
| Δημοσίευση: |
2020
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| Θέματα: | |
| Διαθέσιμο Online: | http://hdl.handle.net/11610/21336 |
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| Περίληψη: | Climate change is one of the most prominent concerns for the future of humanity in the 21st century. The presence of humanity in the planet may be viewed as precarious, especially when considering the adverse effects of human activity and development. The current scenario predictions for year 2100 is a 4°C temperature growth. A 4 degree change has not happened in the global climate since 20.000 BC. Growing emissions from the use of fossil fuels negatively affects a series of environmental factors and is affects human life from every-day quality of life to long-term health effects, macroeconomic change, movement in human population, social equity and of course, the quality of the environement and life as a whole. A major contributor of these emissions is the transportation sector. For this reason, a multitude of international and national organizations have proposed an answer to the growing emissions, which can be grouped under the term sustainable or “green” transportation.
This thesis explores the notion of green, sustainable transportation in depth. The thesis creates an innovative framework for the analysis of decision-making process in transport and activity related matters and it designs and crafts an interactive policy assesment tool that is based on econometric modelling. The econometric modelling is done in three different tiers, the everyday rhythms tier, that is concerned with the everyday activity and transport choices of individuals and how their lifestyle can affect these choices, the light infrastructure tier that explores the effect of active transport friendly interventions in the transport system via measurable key performance indicators and the future fleet purchase tier that provides insight into the future fleet mixture and the effect it will have on the emissions and fuel cost.
The daily rhtyhms tier includes the effect of lifestyle by comparing the sample from collected data in Chios island to a database from Athens, Greece. This comparison effectively demostrates the heterogeneity of the two areas, the differences in spatial and temporal choices and the effect that lifestyle has on them. Policy-wise it presents justification for tailor-made, location-based solutions and careful consideration of norms, rhythms and lifestyle choices of the study area when applying policy bundles.
The chapter discussing the effect of active transport promoting measures uses a simulation of the study area to measure the effect of the creation of bike lanes and the pedestrianization of certain links in the study area. The analysis provides measurable outcome through the usage of various KPIs, such as passenger kilometers, share of active transport, daily accidents and traffic levels.
The third analysis tier is concerned with future fleet purchase. It utilizes a menu-based, build-your-own, experiment approach allowing survey respondents to create their ideal vehicle using various attributes (including alternative fuel and automation level) while presenting a reasonable pricing to them. The analysis is conducted using a hybrid choice model, with latent variables aiming to reduce uncertainty and errors in the decrypting of the decision-making process.
The thesis also provides insight into the creation, design and implementation of the policy platform tool. The tool is interactive in the sense that the user can control various variables and view the output, comparing the different policy measures and scenarios. It is coded in R and developed as a webpage, in a user-friendly user interface that does not require special understanding to operate.
The thesis uses a sample of 1288, roughly 2% of the population of individuals from the island of Chios, Greece. The data collection is realized through a series of electronic questionnaires including a household and an individual questionnaire, a stated-preference experiment, an activity diary and accompanied by GPS devices to assist the activity diary.
The contribution of the thesis can be found on several topics. First, the thesis explores the notion of sustainable transport and the human behavior that is related to it using a multi-tier analysis that spans from every-day life of individuals to future, long-term decisions. Secondly, it uses a series of analytical tools to answer the research questions, innovative econometric models, transport simulation and a in-house developed interactive decision-making tool. It is a spherical exploration of the available analytical tools, each of which used provides the specific insight for which it was used. Additionally, the case study that is conducted in an insular, island area provides insight into the behavior, choices and particularities of an area that smaller scale, smoother interventions may be more succesful than abrupt, sudden changes. The lifestyle of the study area plays a significant role in the conducted analysis. Findings from this analysis contribute to the transferability of models. Finally, the thesis provides useful insight into various policy measures that should be considered for changing the human behavior, attracting more citizens to using sustainable means of transport and improving the stanard of living while minimizing the external cost of transportation. |
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