Conference Agenda

The adoption of environmentally-friendly public transportation (EFPT) systems is targeted by European Union (EU) policies as a means to improve local ambient air quality, reduce road congestion, and contribute to greenhouse gas (GHG) abatement. In support of this policy goal, this study assesses and compares public support for EFPT across 31 European nations. We develop a novel Bayesian logit model with identified scale to estimate willingness to pay (WTP) for local EFPT upgrades from 6,520 contingent valuation survey responses. We find evidence that WTP is primarily driven by expected improvements to public goods, such as air quality and GHG abatement, as opposed to private ridership benefits. Across all nations, an average WTP of 7.48 euros per individual, per month is estimated. WTP distributions are strongly positive in all nations suggesting implicit public support for EFPT at the EU-level.

In summer 2022, Germany allowed access to public transport throughout the country for just 9 euros per month. In this paper, we examine whether this “9-Euro Ticket” policy induced a shift from cars to public transport. To this end, we evaluate the policy’s impact on mobility behavior and compare our results with other analyses of the policy that use different empirical approaches. The evidence shows that the 9-Euro Ticket induced only a marginal shift from car to public transport and that it has primarily been used to expand personal mobility rather than to substitute car trips. We subject the 9-Euro Ticket to a cost-benefit analysis based on its achieved carbon reduction. When compared to other climate policies, the costs appear disproportionately high. Based on these results and in conjunction with evidence from similar programs as well as insights from economic theory, we discuss alternatives to flat-rate pricing for public transport.

Although road pricing policies have been shown to reduce traffic volume and improve local air quality, channels through which households adjust their travel behavior have not been thoroughly studied. This paper applies carefully assembled microdata to examine households' responses to introducing a congestion charge in the second-largest Swedish city on both extensive and intensive margins. Applying a triple-difference estimator to explore quasi-experimental variations, we document that the charge reduces the probability that a working household with cross-cordon commuters will choose to operate at least one car by half a percentage point. However, households with cross-cordon commuters who keep operating their cars are less responsive in altering their vehicle usage decisions. Our findings speak directly about heterogeneous behavioral responses to road pricing policies.

Higher fuel taxes would be one of the most efficient tools to cut CO2 emissions from transportation. However, fuel taxes face strong public and political opposition. This raises the question whether implementing complementary policies that disincentivize car use could help in decarbonizing the transportation sector. In this paper, I ask how effective a tool public transportation pricing is at reducing car use and ultimately CO2 emissions from transportation. To provide evidence of the effects of pricing in an European context, I estimate the elasticity of car use with respect to public transit fares in the Helsinki region in Finland. I use price variation induced by a transit pass fare reduction of €526, or 45 percent, at the annual level. I use a difference-in-differences approach in which I compare changes in vehicle kilometers traveled and car ownership between individuals who happened to face different fare reductions due to living on different sides of newly introduced travel zone borders. This comparison is made possible by detailed individual-level data on vehicle kilometers driven, car ownership and residential locations. I find that annual vehicle kilometers traveled decreased by 5–8 percent among individuals who were eligible for the fare reduction. However, I find no response in car ownership rates.