Networks, commuting and spatial structures: An introduction

JTLU vol. 2, no. 3, (2010) pp 1-4This article introduces vol. 2, no. 3 issue of Journal of Transport and Land Use

Spatial economic impacts of developing international top office locations: a case study for Amsterdam South

A strong competition takes place between large European cities for attracting international head offices in especially the services sector. This paperinvestigates the spatial economic and employment impacts of developing such a top location. First, a theoretical overview is presented on generativeeconomic growth and the locational behaviour of companies. Then attention is paid to the potential employment and spatial economic impacts (bothdistributive and generative) of such a project. In the second part of the paper, a case study is presented for Amsterdam South, which the localgovernment wishes to develop as an international top office location. It appears that there are indications of generativeemployment impacts, but that there may also occur distributive effects, e.g. relocation of firms from the city centre towards the new location. It isconcluded that both psychological factors and a careful planning are very important for the development of top locations. When a project is successful,new employment may be generated, but undesirable distributive impacts may be substantial

Economic evaluation of safety measures for transport companies

Measures to reduce material damage within companies may both increase the business economic performance of the company and traffic safety in general. In this paper the notion of whether such measures are economically feasible is investigated. Results are presented of a series of interviews amongtransport companies and of a postal questionnaire survey. Next, calculations are presented for three types of companies: a small family company, a large family company and a large formalised company. The main conclusions are that a successful introduction of measures is largely influenced bypsychological and cultural factors. Especially in larger companies, substantial cost savings may occur due to an active material damage preventionpolicy, which will also have positive impacts on traffic safety in general

Distribution of lipids in non-lamellar phases of their mixtures

We consider a model of lipids in which a head group, characterized by its volume, is attached to two flexible tails of equal length. The phase diagram of the anhydrous lipid is obtained within self-consistent field theory, and displays, as a function of lipid architecture, a progression of phases: body-centered cubic, hexagonal, gyroid, and lamellar. We then examine mixtures of an inverted hexagonal forming lipid and a lamellar forming lipid. As the volume fractions of the two lipids vary, we find that inverted hexagonal, gyroid, or lamellar phases are formed. We demonstrate that the non-lamellar forming lipid is found preferentially at locations which are difficult for the lipid tails to reach. Variations in the volume fraction of each type of lipid tail are on the order of one to ten per cent within regions dominated by the tails. We also show that the variation in volume fraction is correlated qualitatively with the variation in mean curvature of the head-tail interface.Comment: 10 pages, 12 figures (better figures are available upon request), to appear in J. Chem. Phy

Second-degree Price Discrimination and Inter-group Effects in Airline Routes between European Cities

This paper presents a model of second-degree price discrimination and inter-group effects to describe the full-service pricing behaviour in the passenger aviation market. Consumer heterogeneity is assumed on both a horizontal and a vertical dimension, while various distinct market structures, some of which include low-cost carriers (LCCs), are considered. In the theoretical model framework, we derive that the rivalry between full-service carriers (FSCs) reduces fare differences between the business and leisure segments. Furthermore, the presence of LCCs increases fare gaps between leisure and business travellers, and it also induces FSCs to decrease fares in the leisure segment and eventually to increase them in the business one. This last outcome emerges from a change in passenger arrangements caused by inter-group effects. In our empirical analysis, we use data on published airfares of Lufthansa, British Airways, KLM and Alitalia for the main city-pairs from Italy to Germany, the UK and the Netherlands. Our results show that the empirical results provide support for our theoretical propositions

Consumer Valuation of Driving Range: A Meta-Analysis

We perform a meta-analysis of studies investigating consumers' preferences for electric and other alternative fuel vehicles to provide insights into the way consumers trade off driving range for capital costs. We find that consumers are willing to pay, on average, between 47 and 64 USD for a one-mile increase in vehicle's range. The short driving range of most currently available electric vehicles entails that they should be offered at prices around half the price of their conventional counterparts in order to be considered competitive alternatives, ceteris paribus. In line with intuition, but in contrast to most specifications employed in primary studies, we find evidence that consumers' marginal willingness to pay (WTP) is decreasing in driving range. The wide divergence in the estimates of welfare measures among the examined studies can be mainly attributed to differences in the study design, the location at which the study was conducted and the size of the study's sample. Provided that a large scale introduction of electric vehicles is a policy aim, our findings support the continuation of R&D efforts directed towards the reduction of battery costs and the development of advanced battery technologies permitting higher driving ranges than the ones currently achievable by most commercially available electric cars

Quantum resistance metrology in graphene

We have performed a metrological characterization of the quantum Hall resistance in a 1 $\mu$m wide graphene Hall-bar. The longitudinal resistivity in the center of the $\nu=\pm 2$ quantum Hall plateaus vanishes within the measurement noise of 20 m$\Omega$ upto 2 $\mu$A. Our results show that the quantization of these plateaus is within the experimental uncertainty (15 ppm for 1.5$\mu$A current) equal to that in conventional semiconductors. The principal limitation of the present experiments are the relatively high contact resistances in the quantum Hall regime, leading to a significantly increased noise across the voltage contacts and a heating of the sample when a high current is applied