Understanding dynamic responses to mitigation policies for intra-urban road freight emissions
Year: 2014
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Freight transport is an integral component of the economy, providing benefits to businesses, consumers and the wider economy. Yet despite its many benefits, freight transport also contributes disproportionately to the emissions of air pollutants and greenhouse gases relative to other vehicles. This has necessitated strategies that attempt to maintain the societal benefits provided by freight transport while limiting the damage caused to both human health and the environment. Designing policies that can strike this balance requires an understanding of how firms might adapt to restrictions in how they operate. This thesis explores the dynamic components of behavioural decision making that drive how freight firms respond to policies across time with an aim to improving the design of mitigation policies for intra-urban road freight emissions. This thesis develops a novel approach to collecting longitudinal data on the behavioural responses of freight firms to government policies. The approach involves the use of a survey in which respondents are presented with a simulated scenario where they must complete a freight delivery task repeatedly over a period of time. The survey is used to collect a longitudinal dataset on how freight firms adapt to government policies. The dataset is used to investigate how and when firms adapt to government policies focusing on their choices of routes, vehicles and departure time. Using a structural equation modelling approach to growth models, the adaptation strategies of firms are analysed to see what attributes influence firms' decisions, how their influence changes through several stages of a policy's introduction and how firms ultimately respond to policies. By adding the time dimension, these models more accurately reflect the dynamic nature of decision making of freight firms. Finally, a predictive model is developed that can be used to assess how firms are likely to respond to policies intended to reduce emissions from urban freight.
Author: Richard Ellison
Language: English
Subfield: Transportation
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W14521228