In response to severe traffic congestion and air pollution, Beijing introduced a car ownership restriction policy to curb growth in the number of private cars in the city. However, Beijing residents can still purchase and register their cars in neighboring cities and this “leakage” may substantially reduce the policy’s effectiveness. Using city-level data collected from the CEIC China Premium Database, we aim to quantify the spill-over effect: the impact of Beijing’s policy on the growth of...

Although researchers increasingly adopt machine learning to model travel behavior, they predominantly focus on prediction accuracy, ignoring the ethical challenges embedded in machine learning algorithms. This study introduces an important missing dimension - computational fairness - to travel behavior analysis. It highlights the accuracy-fairness tradeoff instead of the single dimensional focus on prediction accuracy in the contexts of deep neural network (DNN) and discrete choice models (...

Beijing's license plate lottery policy was originally designed to curb the growth of local vehicle population. However, the avoidance behaviors such as local residents registering their cars in neighboring cities offsets the policy effect. Using the city-level data collected from the CEIC China Premium Database, this study quantitatively identifies the causal effect of the implementation of Beijing's car ownership restriction policy on the growth of private vehicles in neighboring cities. We...

As public transit agencies across the United States raise fares, transit affordability has emerged a salient equity issue on the political agenda. With few exceptions, transit agencies do not provide means-tested discounts for low-income riders (federal policy only mandates senior and disability discounts). Our research investigates how the cost of public transit influences transit use and access to goods and services among low-income riders, and whether a low-income fare policy instrument...

Local governments play an important role in urban transportation through street management, zoning, right-of-way apportionment, and shared jurisdiction over ride-hailing, transit, and road pricing. While cities can harness these powers to steer the development of new transportation technologies, there is little research about what local officials think about making autonomous vehicle (AV)-related policy changes. We compile key AV-related transportation policies and conduct a large survey of...

Facing rapid motorization, many Chinese municipalities are implementing policies that restrict car ownership or use. However, there is significant variation in terms of which cities adopt these policies and when. This research systematically investigates what factors prompt local governments in China to adopt these car restriction policies. We collect a database of car restriction policies as well as economic, demographic, land use, and transportation indicators for 287 Chinese...

The explosion of low-cost, on-demand taxi services and the anticipation of an autonomous vehicle future has made transportation the center of debate and discussion for the first time since the massive expansion of the US highway system in the 1950s. Yet the realm of parking boasts innovations and developments far beyond the high-profile issues of TNCs and AVs. Rather, innovation in parking is happening in many cases quietly on a wide variety of fronts, including technology, public policy,...

In this paper we answered three questions: 1) Does social interaction in mobility sharing impact the usage and satisfaction level with it? 2) Is there gender deference in considering social interaction as motivation or deterrent for mobility sharing? 3) Is there gender difference in the usage and satisfaction with mobility sharing services. With a survey (n=997) in the U.S. cities where Uber or Lyft is available, we combined data of sociodemographic variables, social interaction indicators,...

Problem, Research Strategy, and Findings: Local government policies could impact how autonomous vehicle (AV) technology is deployed. This paper examines how municipalities are planning for AVs, identifies local characteristics that are associated with preparation, and describes what impacts bureaucrats expect from the vehicles. We review existing plans of the United States’ 25 largest cities and survey transportation and planning officials from 120 cities, representative of all...

Chinese cities have experienced diverse urbanization and motorization trends that present distinct challenges for municipal transportation policymaking. However, there is no systematic understanding of the unique motorization and urbanization trends of Chinese cities and how physical characteristics map to their transportation policy priorities. We adopt a mixed-method approach to address this knowledge gap. We conduct a time-series clustering of 287 Chinese cities using eight indicators of...

With continued motorization and urbanization in Chinese cities, there is a growing demand for innovative transportation policies at the city level to address the challenges of congestion, local air pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions. Using Beijing and Shanghai as case studies, this paper draws on 32 in-depth semi-structured interviews with municipal government officials, academics, and transportation professionals to explore the city-level transportation policymaking process in Chinese...

The deployment of autonomous vehicles (AVs) has spawned a considerable literature on the role of national and state-level governments in regulating components of AV manufacturing, emissions, safety, licensing, and data sharing. These provide insight into how AVs can be integrated into the current transportation system. Yet the potential for local governments to shape their futures through AV policies is underexplored. This paper argues that it is both necessary and feasible for...

This study explored two aspects of the rule of law in China: (1) motivations for compliance with 4 groups of everyday laws and regulations and (2) determinants of the legitimacy of legal authorities. We applied a structural equations model, constructed from Tyler’s conceptual process-based self-regulation model with morality added as a motivation, to online questionnaire responses from 1,000 Shanghai drivers. We explored the compliance with four particular groups of laws: public disturbance...

Research on Chinese traffic law compliance is lacking compared to the West. Yet it is increasingly important because of explosive recent growth of cars in China. Although demographic attributes such as age and gender and certain driver characteristics such as experience and annual mileage have been studied in regard to traffic law compliance, normative and instrumental motivations for compliance have not been thoroughly studied. Normative motivations specifically have not been fully...

Lotteries and auctions are common ways of allocating public resources, but they have rarely been used simultaneously in urban transportation policies. This paper presents a unique policy experiment in Guangzhou, China, where lotteries and auctions are used in conjunction to allocate vehicle licenses. Guangzhou introduced vehicle license regulations to control the monthly quota of local automobile growth in 2012. To obtain a license, residents are required to choose between the lottery and...

Unit costs measured as bus operating costs per vehicle mile have increased considerably above the inflation rate in recent decades in most transit agencies in the United States. This paper examines the impact of (lack of) productivity growth, union bargaining power, and contracting out on cost escalation. We draw from a 17-year (1997–2014) and a 415-bus transit agency panel with 5780 observations by type of operation (directly operated by the agency or contracted out). We have three main...

We examine the connection between public knowledge and attitudes in the context of urban transportation policies. We categorize policy knowledge into received, subjective, and reasoned knowledge, and measure them empirically using a survey of Shanghai’s residents (n=1,000) on the vehicle license auction policy. We quantify the relationship between the three types of knowledge and public acceptance and its predecessors (perceived effectiveness, affordability, and equity). We find variegated...

Increases in ridership are outpacing capacity expansions in a number of transit systems. By shifting their focus to demand management, agencies can instead influence how customers use the system, getting more out of the capacity they already have. This paper uses Hong Kong's MTR system as a case study to explore the effects of crowding-reduction strategies as well as methods to use automatically collected fare data to support these measures. MTR introduced a pre-peak discount in September...

We introduce the advantage of behavioral economics into the transportation policy evaluation criteria that traditional economic approaches do not consider. To that end, we present a framework for using tax salience as a connection between the dimensions of government policy objectives (revenue, behavior change, and public acceptance) with tax instruments (car ownership charge, fuel tax, congestion tax, parking fee) meant to influence behavior. Salience is the psychological effect of paying...

Policy travel, a series of processes in which policies are transmitted and, possibly, mutated through a network of policy-making sites, plays an important role in China’s rapid transportation development. This paper examines the Chinese transport policy market framework: its formation, components and transactions. The study is based on 30in-depth interviews with politicians, technicians and academics involved in transport policy and 14 transportation policies discussed in 11 Chinese cities....

The astronomical growth in the number of private cars in China has led to very visible environmental crises and congestion. But the nationwide increase conceals crucial policy differences between cities that influence effectiveness, revenue, efficiency, equity and public acceptance.  While Shanghai and Beijing each had approximately 2 million motor vehicles in 2004, by 2010 Beijing had 4.8 million versus Shanghai’s 3.1 million.  By 2011, 38% of Beijing households were vehicle owners in...

Increased automobile ownership and use in China over the last two decades has increased energy consumption, worsened air pollution, and exacerbated congestion. However, the countrywide growth in car ownership conceals great variation among cities. For example, Shanghai and Beijing each had about 2 million motor vehicles in 2004, but by 2010, Beijing had 4.8 million motor vehicles whereas Shanghai had only 3.1 million. Among the factors contributing to this divergence is Shanghai’s vehicle...