https://hdl.handle.net/2123/17660 2026-06-13T10:51:05Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/35372 A Nexus or Not? A First Examination of Cost-of-Living Concern, Neighbourhood Perceptions, Active Travel, and Wellbeing in Cities Beck, Matthew J.; Greaves, Stephen This paper is a first step in the literature, looking at potential links between cost-of-living stress and the perceptions of local neighbourhoods, under the hypothesis that greater pressure about housing affordability, transportation costs, or indeed cost-of-living overall could lead to a degradation in how the neighbourhood within which a person lives is perceived. We find confirmation that cost-of-living goes beyond technical measures of housing stress and indeed beyond just housing stress alone. Of relevance is that those who could be classified as having rising concern (consumables) have among the highest levels of relative stress. We find that there is generally just as much concern about the rising cost of fuel, which is directly related to trip making, further compounding transport accessibility and equity. Overall, our first attempt to investigate the potential nexus of cost-of-living, neighbourhood perception, wellbeing, physical activity and active travel, produces enough evidence and insight to establish that there are potential links which are likely to play out in unknown ways during cost-of-living crises. We argue that our results are sufficient enough that research should extend them to transportation costs and trip making more generally and urge other researchers to consider building on these insights. 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/35301 Should I stay or should I travel? An analysis of increasing petrol prices on travel behaviour Pellegrini, Andrea; Beck, Matthew J.; Rose, John M. This paper examines how rising petrol prices affect weekly travel behaviour, with particular attention to modal substitution and trip suppression. The analysis draws on stated responses from 808 Queensland residents, each of whom first reported their travel behaviour for the week prior to the survey and then indicated how that behaviour would change under three hypothetical petrol price scenarios set at AUD 2.50, AUD 3.00, and AUD 3.50 per litre (noting fuel prices at the pump varied between an average of AUD 2.20 and AUD 2.53 during the survey period). Weekly trip frequencies are jointly modelled for eight travel outcomes, including car travel as driver, car travel as passenger, public transport, taxi, rideshare, cycling, walking, and avoided trips. The latter category is included within the hypothetical setting to capture the extent to which increase in petrol prices may lead travellers to cancel or forgo trips altogether, rather than simply reallocate travel across modes. The empirical analysis is performed implementing a multivariate Generalised Poisson framework with dependence across travel alternatives introduced through a Gaussian copula. The results indicate that higher petrol prices substantially reduce car travel both as driver car passenger, while increasing public transport use, particularly at the higher price scenarios. However, the substitution towards public transport is only partial. A sizeable share of the adjustment instead occurs through avoided trips, suggesting that fuel price increases are more likely to suppress travel rather than simply induce a reallocation across modes. The findings further show that behavioural responses vary with socio-economic circumstances and perceived transport disadvantage, implying that the burden of higher fuel prices is unevenly distributed. Overall, the paper shows that rising petrol prices affect not only mode choice, but also the ability of individuals to maintain everyday mobility and activity participation. 2026-05-12T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/35286 The impact of fuel prices and supply availability on user behavioural change in Australian household travel amidst global turmoil Hensher, David A.; Wei, Edward; Liu, Wen; Nelson, John D. The global conflict in the Middle East is having a significant impact on the availability of oil to many countries, with Australia feeling the impact more than most countries. Fuel prices escalated during the first three weeks of the war (up to the end of March 2026), typically being 30-50% higher than the retail prices at the pump under normal market conditions. Supply uncertainty has also created problems in distribution, especially for farmers, trucking companies and retail outlets. In response to the escalated fuel prices at the pump, the Federal government announced, on 31 March, a reduction in fuel excise for three months (from 52.6 to 26.3 cents per litre) with state and territory leaders agreeing to pass on the additional goods and services tax windfall to motorists (further reducing the total to 20.6c/litre as well as the removal of the heavy vehicle road user charge for the same period (the latter of 32.4 cents per litre is reduced to zero). This paper explores ways in which users of passenger cars have responded to these price hikes and supply uncertainty. A series of questions incorporated in a survey of 1,000 New South Wales (Australia) residents in the first two weeks of April 2026, up to a temporary ceasefire and US blockage of the Strait of Hormuz, sought evidence on behavioural change responses such as modal switching for work and non-work-related travel, changes in car kilometres, car sharing, working from home, purchase of an electric or hybrid vehicle, and switching car use between petrol/diesel and electric vehicles in the current household fleet. These responses are embedded in a number of scenarios that vary fuel prices and fuel scarcity (availability and rationing) to assess the likely behavioural response in the short run and in the longer run if a scenario becomes reality. Overall, the key policy takeaway is that fuel pricing is most effective as a short run signal and selective rationing tool, while long run resilience depends on structural adaptation, especially vehicle technology, income buffering, and access to substitutes. 2026-05-08T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/35100 Who Accepts Parking Pricing? Trust and Legitimacy in a Contentious Policy Change Beck, Matthew J. This paper examines public responses to the introduction of paid visitor parking as a contentious local policy change in a tourism-dependent region. While parking pricing is widely recognised as an effective tool for managing demand and generating revenue, less is known about how such policies are interpreted and legitimised by affected communities. Using the Blue Mountains in New South Wales as a case study, the study treats the introduction of paid parking as a natural experiment in user-pays reform under conditions of infrastructure funding pressure and climate-related disruption. A mixed-methods approach is employed, combining survey data, factor analysis, clustering, and qualitative thematic analysis to identify patterns in attitudes and interpretation. The findings show that acceptance is not primarily driven by demographic characteristics or behavioural exposure, but by institutional trust, beliefs about collective responsibility, and perceptions of governance quality. Three distinct attitudinal segments are identified, reflecting differing configurations of support, trust, and normative beliefs. Despite the scheme’s demonstrated effectiveness as a revenue-generating instrument capable of supporting substantial infrastructure investment, public acceptance remains contested. The policy is frequently interpreted through a “revenue raising” frame, particularly where trust is limited. The paper argues that parking pricing operates not only as an economic instrument but as a governance signal, with legitimacy contingent on transparency, fairness, and the visible reinvestment of revenues. 2026-04-13T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/35097 Ready to Begin: Driving Towards the Best and Steering Away from the Worst in Road Pricing Policy Reform Beck, Matthew J.; Bliemer, Michiel C.J.; Rose, John M. Declining revenue from traditional road funding sources, rising infrastructure costs, and the transition to electric vehicles have increased the urgency of road user charging reform as a key demand management strategy. While such schemes can improve transport system efficiency by pricing congestion and other externalities, their implementation requires careful balancing with concerns around fairness and affordability. Public acceptability therefore remains a critical constraint on policy adoption. This paper examines which policy features most strongly influence support for road user charging and how these preferences can inform the design of policies that advance efficiency, fairness, and affordability objectives. A best worst scaling approach is used to elicit the relative importance of policy features, with choices modelled using a hybrid choice framework that captures both observed preferences and underlying attitudes. Three distinct behavioural classes are identified, reflecting differing priorities related to efficiency, fairness and consistency, and broader public benefit. Across these groups, governance and institutional arrangements are central to perceived legitimacy. Features such as public ownership, not for profit operation, independent investment decision making, and transparent revenue use are strongly preferred, while more complex pricing mechanisms are viewed less favourably. The findings highlight the importance of trust, fairness, and affordability in supporting effective and acceptable reform. 2026-04-10T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34900 Achieving sustainable travel behaviour change – Insights from practitioners Nelson, John D.; Hensher, David A.; Mulley, Corinne; Kandanaarachchi, Thiranjaya; Wei, Edward; Balbontin, Camila; Liu, Wen Sustainable travel behaviour change has garnered increasing attention in response to the pressing challenges posed by traffic congestion, greenhouse gas emissions, and the broader impacts of travel on public health and wellbeing. This paper draws on insights from a series of expert roundtable discussions involving stakeholders from government, industry organisations, and research institutions with the primary objective of gathering multidisciplinary perspectives to inform the development of an overarching conceptual framework that supports the design of context-sensitive and effective behaviour change interventions. Themes emerging from the discussions were critically reviewed and mapped to relevant behavioural constructs such as attitudes, perceived behavioural control, subjective norms, and intention. The ensuing framework synthesises theoretical foundations from established behaviour change models with real-world experiences in the transport domain, offering a structured lens through which to interpret the drivers and barriers of behavioural shifts. Key insights that emerged include the critical role of overarching policies and goals enabled through collaborative governance, the need for inclusive and user centred interventions aligned with personal and societal benefits and the need for stakeholder collaboration within and across different sectors. By presenting evidence-informed recommendations and a cohesive conceptual framework, this paper offers a foundation for advancing sustainable transport through targeted and systemic behavioural change initiatives. 2026-02-26T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34831 From New to Second-Hand: Consumer Trade-offs Between Price, Range and Vehicle Condition for BEVs and Hybrids in Australia Rose, John M.; Pellegrini, Andrea Most empirical work on vehicle choice has focused on new-vehicle purchase decisions, even though households often acquire vehicles through the second-hand market and face a different set of constraints and information conditions. This paper addresses that gap by estimating a single choice framework that spans new and second-hand passenger vehicle markets, allowing direct comparison of how consumers value vehicle attributes and how substitution patterns differ across the two segments. We use a discrete choice experiment administered to a New South Wales sample, with alternatives that include new and second-hand vehicles and an opt-out, and attributes that reflect both markets, including purchase price, body type, vehicle size, powertrain, range, delivery availability for new vehicles, and odometer and condition for second-hand vehicles. Preferences are estimated using a two-class latent class model with error components to capture correlation in unobserved utility and segment-specific substitution within new and second-hand markets. The results show substantial heterogeneity in valuations and clear differences between new and second-hand decision processes, with second-hand quality signals exerting economically meaningful effects and price sensitivity being stronger for second-hand choices. Powertrain attributes matter, but their implications vary by market segment and by class, indicating that technology preferences interact with the institutional and informational features of the market in which the vehicle is acquired. Applying the estimated class-membership model to population microdata, we generate conditional parameter and willingness-to-pay distributions for a large synthetic population and predict market shares for simulated vehicle profiles. The simulation results underscore that secondary-market dynamics materially shape predicted demand patterns, which has implications for policies and market designs that aim to influence fleet composition through interventions that operate in, or propagate through, the second-hand market. 2026-02-10T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34830 Multivariate Perceptions of Post-Purchase EV Ownership Issues Pellegrini, Andrea; Cherchi, Elisabetta; Rose, John M. The objective of this study is to examine how electric vehicle (EV) owners perceive a range of post-purchase issues that are relevant to EV adoption. Using a nationwide sample of 1,794 Australian EV owners, we analyse the importance assigned to seven post-acquisition concerns: range anxiety, public charging availability, charging duration, upfront price and value for money, model availability and consumer choice, trust of new technologies, and battery fire safety. The empirical findings suggest that there exist differences across EV users in terms of socio-economic factors, home charging infrastructure factors and vehicle characteristics with respect to the seven rating dimensions. Further, post-purchase concerns appear to be highly positive interdependent, particularly regarding charging infrastructure, technological trust and safety, and financial aspects. Finally, simulation results show that public charging infrastructure remains highly important, even if all respondents are assumed to have access to solar panels for EV charging activities. 2026-02-10T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34825 Valuing the eudaimonic wellbeing benefits of land use transport measures Stanley, John; Hensher, David A.; Vella-Brodrick, Dianne A.; Stanley, Janet Benefit measurement for locally-focused land use transport interventions is often narrow. The ultimate purpose of such interventions is often improved citizen wellbeing, yet this is seldom measured or monetized. Adding such valuation provides a way to more comprehensively reflect the value of associated interventions. Subjective wellbeing measurement is broadly divided between hedonic and eudaimonic streams, benefit monetization focusing on the value of changes in life satisfaction (part of hedonic wellbeing). While improving life satisfaction might have initial value, this might not be sustained if eudaimonic wellbeing is not concurrently promoted, suggesting land use transport policy/planning should take a broader view of what it means for people to be ‘well’ than is embedded in life satisfaction. However, no values have been identified for changes in levels of eudaimonic wellbeing, partly because of lack of agreement about how to best measure eudaimonic wellbeing. To address this monetisation gap, the paper develops a value for changes in eudaimonic wellbeing, measured using Ryff’s (1989) Scale, and explores implications for valuing wellbeing as life satisfaction. The resulting eudaimonic wellbeing values are likely to be particularly useful for evaluating land use/transport initiatives with a local focus, such as walking and place-making improvements, but the monetised values are more broadly applicable. Literature implied that changes in eudaimonic wellbeing may have higher monetized value than changes in life satisfaction, because of the broader societal connections embedded within eudaimonic wellbeing, an expectation confirmed in the analysis, highlighting the policy importance of eudaimonic wellbeing. 2026-02-09T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34774 Is the Debate on Net Zero Emission Targets in Australia Aligned with Political Preference Bias? Hensher, David A.; Wei, Edward; Greene, William H. Net Zero emission targets have become a politically sensitive policy in many, but not all, countries. It is suggested that they are not achievable and are potentially misaligned with energy security as Net Zero becomes intertwined with the move towards renewables and away from fossil fuel energy sources, where the latter is widely seen as the baseload for many nations. Australia is embroiled in a political debate on whether Net Zero as a target will achieve its emission objectives in the presence of escalating energy prices and uncertainty in respect of cost and damage to an economy, given a wealth of fossil fuel resources, as well as some support for nuclear power which currently is not sanctioned by the Federal government. There has been a lot of media attention to Net Zero (CO2) or greenhouse gas emissions, and it is unclear whether it is well understood, and what it might mean for Australia, given there are views that it is either a great idea or a bad idea. This paper draws on a new survey in Australia to gain an appreciation of public understanding of Net Zero and what the public thinks it might mean for Australians, and how their preferences are aligned with support for political parties. We estimate a hybrid logit choice model of support for political parties that encapsulates the endogeneity of “soft” variables such as latent attitude variables that are driven by observable “causes,” and unobservable heterogeneity, which together with contextual and socioeconomic characteristics provide evidence on preference bias for or against Net Zero associated with political affiliation. 2026-01-28T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34730 A decade of Mobility-as-a-Service research: A systematic review of modeling methods and future research agenda Xi, Haoning; Hensher, David A.; Zhang, Yimeng; Zhang, Xiang; Shao, Zhiqi; Nelson, John D.; Waller, S. Travis Over the last decade (2015–2025), Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) has rapidly evolved from a visionary concept into a mature, user-centric socio-technical ecosystem. This paper marks a ten-year methodological milestone by conducting a PRISMA-guided systematic review of 92 peer-reviewed journal articles from Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar. The existing body of quantitative modeling literature informing MaaS design, operations, and regulation remains fragmented across disciplines, assumptions, and decisionmaking layers. In response, we propose a unified framework that categorizes the literature into six methodological families: simulation models, optimization models, discrete choice models, other statistical methods, data-driven and predictive machine learning models, and game theory and mechanism design models. Using this framework, we map these modeling methods onto four core MaaS research themes: demand-side modeling, supply-side operations, MaaS ecosystem governance, and platform and subscription bundle design. Major findings indicate that existing demand studies have predominantly relied on stated-preference valuations of MaaS subscription plans and bundles, with only limited revealedpreference validation; optimization models have increasingly formalized allocation, matching, and assignment under operational constraints, albeit often assuming overly simplified traveler behavior; and machine learning techniques have expanded rapidly but are generally deployed as stand-alone prediction tools rather than integrated into policy-constrained decision support systems. In addition, the maturity levels of each methodological family reveal significant disparities: foundational areas such as revealed-preference modeling and choice-based optimization are well-established (extensively studied), while emerging fields like machine learning and game theory remain less studied or in early-stage exploration. To advance the field, we provide a forward-looking agenda of 20 research directions, prioritizing more data-driven behavioral modeling, tighter demand–supply integration in operational settings, new multi-sector partnerships, and the concept of Mobility-as-a-Feature. We emphasize planning for equity and long-term impacts and the responsible incorporation of emerging technologies into next-generation MaaS. This systematic methodological review provides evidence-based guidance and a structured roadmap for researchers, operators, and policymakers, addressing identified gaps and highlighting areas requiring further development to support robust, policyaligned decision-making in MaaS. 2026-01-20T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34713 Establishing Evidence of Initiatives undertaken by Non Mobility Service Providers that are aligned with Sustainable Travel Behaviour Change as a next generation focus of MaaS as MaaF Hensher, David A.; Nelson, John D.; Balbontin, Camila; Ho, Chinh; Wei, Edward; Mulley, Corinne; Kandanaarachchi, Thiranjaya Mobility as a Service (MaaS) has garnered a significant amount of interest over the last 15 years and yet we have very little to show in Western nations in terms of its influence on travel behaviour aligned with sustainability goals, as well as an encouraging business case with or without an injection of significant government subsidy or private venture capital. While we see claimed success in Japan and China, this is the result of a government led and controlled initiative with extensive subsidy, something which appears to be beyond possibility in most countries. Certainly, to date, there are examples of Governments (e.g., across Europe) claiming interest and commitment but no financial support beyond existing subsidy to public transport available to all users. In researching MaaS over the last 10 years, we have come to the position that its future may reside in a greater involvement of non-mobility service providers (NMSPs) in recognition that a multi-service focus may offer up some real prospects of not only delivering desirable travel behaviour change but in facilitating a scalable outcome. Mobility as a Feature (MaaF) is one interpretation of this revised eco-system and has informed us of the potential opportunities that can be invoked through participation of NMSPs. To understand whether this has prospects, a survey in six countries in 2024 was undertaken to identify initiatives that are already in place within private enterprise and government agencies that align well with contributing to sustainable travel behaviour goals. The results suggest that much is already happening, but it has not been recognised as a MaaS/MaaF-like initiative. This paper presents the evidence and suggests a re-interpretation of what a future MaaS portfolio may look like, noting that this scalable future does not have to depend on the transport service providers working together other than their presence in providing services in the market to anyone wishing to use them. The focus historically on transport service providers appears to have been a major roadblock in progressing MaaS. 2026-01-15T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34712 Towards a conceptual framework of hard and soft behaviour change interventions in sustainable transport Nelson, John D.; Hensher, David A.; Mulley, Corinne; Kandanaarachchi, Thiranjaya; Wei, Edward; Balbontin, Camila; Liu, Wen This paper aims to identify effective strategies for promoting behavioural change towards more sustainable travel patterns, drawing on evidence from the literature and practice. Established objectives for behaviour change interventions include reducing emissions, alleviating congestion, and enhancing overall well-being through targeted interventions. Drawing on existing frameworks for behaviour change, the paper focuses on the key dimensions which are relevant to the design and evaluation of policy measures. A multi-dimensional conceptual framework of behaviour change interventions in transport is proposed to highlight the importance of combining ‘hard’ measures, such as road user charges and infrastructure investments, with ‘soft’ measures, like public awareness campaigns and incentive programmes. The other three dimensions cover the timeframe for change, the level of change impact and the “push” and “pull” change strategies. Evidence of previous impact is presented, distinguishing between marginal and non-marginal changes and, where appropriate, the longevity of impact. The evidence demonstrates that tailoring these strategies to specific population segments and geographic contexts is crucial for delivering impact, particularly given the diverse travel needs and socio-demographic factors that exist within different jurisdictions. The paper concludes with recommendations for advancing research to better understand the synergetic effects of various behaviour change interventions using the proposed framework. 2026-01-15T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34694 Establishing the Level of Support for Transport Initiatives which make a Positive Impact on Travel Behaviour Hensher, David A.; Wei, Edward; Nelson, John D.; Kandanaarachchi, Thiranjaya; Mulley, Corinne; Balbontin, Camila; Liu, Wen; Ho, Chinh The concept of “windows of change” (WoC) highlights periods when established behaviours are unsettled and individuals are more open to alternatives. This paper advances the understanding of sustainable transport policy by highlighting WoC and segmentation as complementary tools for designing and implementing effective interventions. Data is collected from over 4,000 respondents spread across Australia, Finland, New Zealand, the United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore, and Sweden, investigating respondents’ WoC over the period 2023–2025. We also explore the influence of 50 transport-influencing initiatives on how people travel. From a three class Latent Class Analysis model we labelled the classes as “Urban strivers” (characterised noticeably by a majority of members in full-time employment); “Settled simplifiers” (in addition to retirees, including homemakers and other "not working"); and “Dynamic jugglers” (including part-time and flexible workers). Dynamic jugglers are found to be the most receptive of the range of transport-influencing initiatives explored. The comparative analysis of these three classes demonstrates how segmentation, when combined with WoC, can guide policymakers in tailoring transport interventions more effectively. 2026-01-13T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34693 Identifying circumstances in which the introduction of distance-based, cordon-based, and congestion-free lane road user charge regimes garner support Hensher, David A.; Wei, Edward; Balbontin, Camila; Nelson, John D. The most challenging transport reform has always been associated with re-pricing of car use. Despite the growing levels of congestion on our roads, there is general reluctance to support a package of pricing reforms designed to make each and every car user potentially better off financially and/or in saving time. There exist a number of systemwide charging reforms such as the Oregon kilometre-based charging regime, but they are in the main opt-in models, which offer an appealing way for politicians to support the ideals of giving everyone a choice. The cordon-based congestion charging schemes in London, Milan, Stockholm, Gothenburg, New York, and Singapore, while applying to all users who enter a specific location, are limited to one location as is the idea of a congestion-free priced lane. This paper focuses on re-pricing options (with varying charges) to identify how residents are likely to respond to peak period distance-based charging throughout an entire city, cordon-based charges in a defined geographical area, and congestion-free priced lanes on major roads. A series of road pricing initiatives were offered to over 4,000 individuals in seven countries, seeking advice on whether a particular initiative is likely to have a positive or negative impact (or none at all) on how they travel, revealing support or otherwise for a specific re-pricing regime. For each road pricing initiative, we ran a generalised ordered logit model to identify what contextual variables influence the probability of an initiative being associated with a positive impact, a negative impact, or no impact. We are especially interested in understanding how prior “windows of change” associated with lifestyle, mobility, work, commuting, and environmental preferences condition support or otherwise for each road pricing reform initiative. The findings provide suggestions on the extent to which each of the eight initiatives assessed can deliver support or otherwise for road pricing reforms from individuals whose recent past is associated with one or more of the 70 windows of change investigated. 2026-01-13T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34564 Who is inclined to embrace sustainable options in on-demand mobility? Pellegrini, Andrea; Fielbaum, Andres Shared on-demand mobility can be made more sustainable, but this often involves trade-offs in comfort and cost. For example, electric vehicles emit less CO2 but may require higher fares to compensate for charging time, while walking segments can reduce vehicle-kilometres travelled by avoiding detours, yet offer less comfort than door-to-door services. This study examines travellers’ willingness to choose more sustainable shared mobility options and identifies which users are most likely to make such choices. To do so, we apply an integrated choice and latent variable model to data collected via a discrete choice experiment (DCE) administrated to a sample of residents of the Greater Sydney Area, Australia. Specifically, respondents were presented with three shared mobility options, two of which required walking to reach pickup or dropoff points. Each option was described by a set of attributes, including waiting time, in-vehicle time, emission reduction relative to conventional vehicles, walking time and price. In addition to completing the DCE, respondents answered a series of attitudinal questions designed to capture key travel-related dimensions: safety of car, pro-walk orientation, time sensitivity, and variety-seeking behaviour. Results indicate that respondents who place high value on car safety are less likely to choose carbon neutral trips, whereas pro-walkers are more inclined to select shared mobility services that involve walking to PUDO points. The results are then used to compute willingness to pay values for five distinct user profiles. Our main findings are that (i) Users are generally willing to pay a higher fare to reduce emissions; (ii) Personalized sustainability options yield greater participation and emission reductions than uniform policies; and (iii) Regular public transport users show higher willingness to walk, highlighting potential synergies between on-demand mobility and transit. 2025-12-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34562 Understanding charging duration patterns of electric vehicle users: Evidence from an Australian field study Pellegrini, Andrea; Cherchi, Elisabetta; Rose, John In this study, we examine the charging location and duration choices made by Australian electric vehicle owners over a one-week period. To do so, we employ a multivariate multiple discrete-grouped extreme value (MDGEV) model (Bhat et al., 2020) that allows the simultaneous evaluation of where and for how long vehicles are charged across multiple locations, while also capturing potential correlation effects among charging sites. Further, state dependent variables are incorporated into the specification to capture habit persistence effects, whereby past charging choices influence subsequent decisions. The empirical findings indicate that solar panel ownership increases the likelihood of home charging but is associated with shorter charging durations compared with households without photovoltaic access. Residing in major cities is found to be linked to a greater reliance on non-home charging, confirming the prolonged challenges faced by electric vehicle owners in densely populated urban areas. Habit persistence is estimated to play a key role in the charging-decision making process, with EV owners exhibiting routine behaviour when selecting the facility for their next charging activities. The estimated results are next used to investigate how charging duration patterns change under the universal adoption of solar panels and flexible electricity plans, revealing that both policies will impact the rate and duration of charging across locations. 2025-12-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34342 Introducing Money into the Framework of a General Equilibrium Model Truong, P. Truong Money is an important factor in economic activities but in a general equilibrium framework the concept of money seems to be absent. In fact money is often considered only as a ‘veil’ in hiding real economic activities, and therefore it has been ‘lifted’ out of the model so that the underlying ‘real’ activities in an economy can be examined more clearly. However, in practice, money is more than just a ‘veil’. It can provide a platform on which many activities and/or commodities can be conceived, produced and exchanged. Money is also a store of value, not of its own, but of others, and with its purchasing-power money can enable its holder to have access to, and command the usage of, many other commodities and labour (human-time) to achieve certain objectives. Money therefore can be considered as part of the infrastructure of an economy which helps the economy to grow and prosper. In the past, economic theories of money and theories of (labour and commodity) values have looked at these two sides of an economy as though they are governed by different ‘laws’, but in fact, there is only one set of laws which govern both the price of money as well as the values of commodities and labour. Since money can act as a means of exchange, it therefore can also act as a constraint on this exchange. This means conceptually and mathematically, the ‘value of money’ is actually just the Lagrangian shadow price of this monetary constraint, but expressed in terms of the values of commodities and labour (not in terms of the ‘value of money’ itself, otherwise this is circular reasoning). If a ‘real’ economy is considered as though consisting of many different value-chains linking all activities together from producers to consumers, then money can act as the shadow price level of all these activity-chains. In this paper, we examine the interactions between the different value-chains and their shadow prices, in a general equilibrium economic model. Since monetary exchange is actually at the core of almost every economic activity in a modern economy, a study of the nature and ‘values’ of these exchanges is important for a better understanding of the working of a ‘real’ economy, and the theory of general equilibrium is a useful foundation or platform on which to conduct this study. 2025-09-29T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34268 Road User Charge Reform and the Political Shift in Interest in Australia: Some Thoughts to Contemplate Hensher, David A. The 2024 electric vehicle distance-based charge introduced in Victoria, Australia, to recognise that such vehicles do not pay fuel excise tax, led to a high court challenge in which it was deemed unconstitutional for a State to introduce such a charge, which is the responsibility of the Federal government (through legislation amendment). This loss of fuel excise as a tax (not a charge) on electric cars whetted the appetite of the Federal Government to place road user charging on a round table in August 2025. We now have elevated the topic right into the political sphere where any change will require such support, and it opens up an opportunity to not only consider the fuel excise issue per se but the broader agenda on road pricing reform. For the first time, we have a political appetite to do something even if it is driven by a loss of fuel excise revenue which has never been earmarked back to roads but is a backbone revenue source for many Federal government initiatives. In this paper, we consider a number of ways in which we can begin the journey to satisfy the political appetite while achieving much broader efficiency and equity objectives. 2025-09-03T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34242 Personal e-scooter ownership and use: Perspectives from New Zealand Greaves, Stephen; Balfoort, Ferdinand C In common with much of the world, e-scooters have emerged onto the urban landscape in New Zealand, promising both a practical and greener form of personal mobility. While focus has primarily been around managing shared e-scooter services, relatively liberal e-scooter legislation has encouraged the purchase of personal/private e-scooters, which are not regulated at the point of sale, exacerbating concerns around how to safely accommodate this emerging mode. In turn, this highlights the need for better understanding of personal e-scooter users, about which relatively little is known. Drawing from a survey of 252 current and former e-scooter owners in New Zealand, this paper provides estimates of e-scooter ownership, explores motivations for purchasing e-scooters, who is buying them, what consumers are looking for, how they are being used and implications for shared e-scooter schemes. Results suggest around 60% of personal e-scooters are capable of travelling about the maximum ‘safe’ e-scooter speed limit in New Zealand of 25 kph. E-scooter owners are more likely be male, middle-aged, middle/higher income, employed and have tried a shared e-scooter scheme prior to purchase and be motivated by the flexibility, performance, and potential cost-savings. The growing number of shared e-scooter services is evidently providing a pathway to purchase, a complementary mode and potentially a factor in people selling their e-scooter. Going forward, safely accommodating, and regulating e-scooter usage without compromising the intrinsic appeal of this emerging mode of transport is essential, if it is to play a meaningful role in moving us towards more sustainable mobility systems. 2025-08-20T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34231 Healthy ageing and active travel: Identifying age-related barriers to walking and cycling Vukalovich, Natarsha; Greaves, Stephen; Owen, Katherine; Tiedemann, Anne; Crane, Melanie In a period of increasing mobility technologies, sustainable transport options, and healthy ageing concerns it is timely to better understand the barriers to active travel, particularly for older adults. Drawing from a survey of 1,522 Sydney residents, we compare travel patterns and perceived barriers to walking and cycling for older adults (60+) and younger adults (18-59). Car/motorbike/Uber use and walking have frequent and consistent use across both age groups. In contrast, public transport and bicycle/e-bicycle use both decline with age. Perceived barriers to walking and cycling are analysed across age groups using logistic regression. Relative to younger adults, older adults are more likely to identify an injury or disability (OR 1.45, 95% CI 1.02 to 2.04) and the convenience of driving (OR 1.35, 95% CI 1.05 to 1.73) as barriers to walking/walking more. Conversely, older adults are less likely to identify no-one to walk with (OR 0.47, 95% CI 0.33 to 0.68), personal safety (OR, 0.28, 95% 0.17 to 0.45), traffic (OR 0.26, 95% CI 0.17 to 0.41), inadequate street lighting (OR 0.50, 95% CI 0.27 to 0.90), no footpaths (OR 0.41, 95% CI 0.24 to 0.70), and distance (OR 0.74, 95% CI 0.58 to 0.96) as barriers to walking/walking more. For cycling, lack of access to a bicycle (OR 2.74, 95% CI 2.15 to 3.48), and insufficient skills (OR 2.9, 95% CI 2.1 to 3.99) are key issues for older adults, while sociocultural and built environment barriers are again perceived as less of a barrier. Practical issues (distance, transport availability, skills development), personal limitations, and potentially the nature/purpose of travel are key factors associated with active travel among older adults in Sydney. Policymakers need to ensure sociocultural and built environment barriers are lowered to ensure those already walking and cycling maintain this into old age. 2025-08-18T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34191 A habit persistence model of multiple discrete/continuous demand for evaluating charging behaviour of Australian electric vehicle owners Pellegrini, Andrea; Rose, John M. This paper introduces a novel habit persistence model of discrete/continuous demand that allows the joint evaluation of the spatial (i.e., location) and temporal (i.e., time of day) dimensions of the charging decision-making process. The model’s habit persistence structure further captures established recharging routines that influence both when and where charging occurs. The proposed model is applied to data capturing weekly charging activities collected using an online survey disseminated to a sample of EV owners recruited from across Australia between February and March 2024. Results show that charging at home is the most prevalent behaviour, with a strong tendency towards daytime charging largely driven by households with access to residential solar panels. Workplace charging emerges as a viable alternative to home charging when employers provide free charging and commuting frequency is high. The model also reveals the presence of state dependencies in charging behaviour, indicating that past choices are likely to influence current charging patterns. The empirical findings are subsequently used to demonstrate how changes in electricity prices can shift charging demand and impact grid load, corroborating the importance of targeted policy interventions to manage the growing energy demand for EVs. 2025-08-05T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34154 Windows of change as precursors to changing travel behaviour aligned with sustainable mobility Hensher, David A.; Nelson, John D.; Wei, Edward; Kandanaarachchi, Thiranjaya; Balbontin, Camila; Ho, Chinh; Mulley, Corinne; Liu, Wen There is increasingly a greater focus on ways in which we can achieve behavioural change associated with improved sustainability outcomes in the transport sector. In societies where the car is the dominant passenger transport mode with all of its associated interpretations of convenience, we continue to search for ways to change travel habits that result in a switch out of the car in favour of public transport and active modes. The focus of this paper is on identifying windows of change (WoC) that have subsequently had an influence on the travel mobility preferences of individuals, hopefully in ways that support sustainability outcomes. We categorise the WoCs into four broad areas: lifestyle and household changes (e.g., changes in living arrangements, family structure, or personal habits), work and commuting-related changes (e.g., changes in employment, workplace incentives or commuting patterns), transport and mobility changes (e.g., changes in vehicle ownership, public transport use or travel habits), and social and environmental considerations (including awareness and influence of others). A series of negative binomial count models are estimated to identify the relationship between the WoCs and modal one-way trip frequency in a typical week, after controlling for various socioeconomic effects and country dummy variables. Data is collected from over 4,000 respondents spread across Australia, Finland, New Zealand, the United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore, and Sweden, investigating respondents’ WoC over the period 2023–2025 and their most recent weekly travel patterns. The findings provide a rich array of policy advice on what key WoC influences suggest actionable ways to support the switch to more sustainable modes, and what remain as clear barriers to achieving such an outcome. 2025-07-29T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33604.2 A spatial-temporal dynamic attention based Mamba model for multi-type passenger demand prediction in multimodal public transit systems Shao, Zhiqi; Xi, Haoning; Hensher, David A.; Wang, Ze; Gong, Xiaolin; Gao, Junbin Predicting multi-type passenger demand, such as for adults, seniors, pensioners, and students, is essential for improving the operational efficiency, equity, and sustainability of multimodal public transit (PT) systems. However, traditional demand prediction models often struggle to capture the complex spatial-temporal variability inherent in diverse socio-demographic groups. To address this gap, we propose a novel spatial-temporal dynamic attention-based state-space model, i.e., STDAtt-Mamba, tailored for multi-type passenger demand prediction in multimodal PT systems. The STDAtt-Mamba model comprises three key components: an adaptive embedding layer that integrates station-level, passenger-type-specific, and temporal embeddings into a unified representation for efficient data processing; a spatial-temporal dynamic attention (STDAtt) module that employs sparse attention mechanisms to selectively capture crucial global spatial-temporal dynamics; and a spatial-temporal dynamic Mamba (STDMamba) module that extends state-space modeling to fuse spatial and temporal dependencies dynamically. We reformulate STDAtt-Mamba as a spatial-temporal dual-path attention mechanism and theoretically prove the complementarity of STDMamba and STDAtt in capturing local and global dependencies, thereby improving the interpretability of the STDAtt-Mamba. We conduct extensive experiments on a large-scale multimodal dataset of over 1.58 million smart card users of 9 passenger types from Queensland, Australia, from 01/2021 to 01/2023. Experimental results demonstrate that STDAtt-Mamba outperforms state-of-the-art baseline models regarding the prediction accuracy across all passenger types and travel modes. By addressing the challenges of heterogeneity in spatial-temporal travel patterns and socio-demographic groups, this study offers an adaptive, robust, scalable, and data-driven tool for managing the heterogeneous passenger demand in multimodal PT systems. 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33703.2 A multi-task Transformer with mixture-of-experts for personalized periodic predictions of individual travel behavior in multimodal public transport Xi, Haoning; Shao, Zhiqi; Hensher, David A; Nelson, John D; Chen, Huaming; Wijayaratna, Kasun Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) platforms are reshaping urban mobility by integrating multiple travel modes into seamless, user-centric systems. However, designing dynamic MaaS bundles that adapt to user-specific preferences, evolving over time in response to changing travel behaviors and shifting needs, remains a significant challenge. The rise of big data and artificial intelligence (AI) has unlocked new opportunities for data-driven personalized MaaS bundle solutions. In this study, we introduce an innovative MaaSformer-MMoE framework to customize user-specific monthly MaaS bundles by predicting each user’s mode-specific usage frequency class (classification tasks) and travel fare (regression task) for the upcoming month based on the user’s previous travel records. Within the multi-gate mixture-of-expert (MMoE) framework, each expert network is a MaaSformer, and each gate determines the weighted contributions of expert outputs relevant to a specific task tower. MaaSformer integrates two key modules: 1) Multi-mode Transformer processes continuous time-series features (e.g., monthly travel time, distance, and fare) employing a multi-feature self-attention mechanism; 2) OD Transformer processes origin-destination (OD)-specific travel features (i.e., journey frequency) using a multi-OD self-attention mechanism. Evaluated on a multimodal (i.e., bus, rail, ferry, and tram) dataset of over 1.5822 million users in Queensland, Australia, from 01/2021 to 01/2023, the proposed MaaSformer-MMoE demonstrates state-of-the-art performance in predicting mode usage frequency class and travel fare compared with 9 baseline models, significantly improving user satisfaction, adoption and retention for MaaS platforms. 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34143 Combining Participatory Budget and Cost Benefit Analysis: A hybrid project evaluation framework Rose, John M.; Pellegrini, Andrea This paper introduces a novel hybrid methodology proposes integrating Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) with Participatory Budgeting (PB) to enhance public sector decision-making. To highlight the approach, we assume that CBA has been conducted to evaluate twelve independent infrastructure and service projects, establishing their economic viability. Subsequently, PB is employed to elicit community preferences regarding the same projects, ensuring alignment with public values. The combined framework aims to reconcile technical efficiency with democratic legitimacy, promoting government outcomes that reflect both expert analysis and citizen priorities. Our findings reveal a strong community preference for projects that improve health outcomes and utility infrastructure, while initiatives focused on transport electrification received comparatively low support. These results underscore the importance of incorporating public sentiment into investment decisions, particularly in sectors where societal benefits may be perceived differently than economic returns. 2025-07-23T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34069 Exploring community public budget preferences for transport electrification: Evidence from a contingent budget allocation study in New South Wales, Australia Pellegrini, Andrea; Rose, John M.; Hensher, David A. The allocation of funds to different functions of government reflets political priorities that often-run counter to public expectations. In this paper, we adopt a contingent allocation method survey task that requires respondents to distribute a fixed budget across 12 different potential project types. The main goal is to elicit community preferences for the allocation of public funds across a broad array of government functions, with a particular focus on transport electrification projects. Based on a sample of 727 residents from the state of New South Wales, Australia, our findings suggest strong community support for funding healthcare, utility related projects, as well as for funding roads and education. The research goal of the study was, however, to explore support for the electrification of the transport sector, for which, unfortunately, we found little support amongst the community. 2025-07-04T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33950 How poor land use planning has created an unfixable problem for transport: a case study of the City of Johannesburg Pisa, Noleen; Ho, Chinh Q.; Hensher, David A.; Luke, Rose; Heyns, Gert; Mageto, Joash; Chakamera, Chengete Rapid urbanisation and apartheid‐era land-use legacies leave many South Africans captive to long, costly, and unsafe commutes. Yet rigorous evidence on how township residents value transport attributes is scarce. This study addresses that gap with the first high-quality stated-preference dataset for commuting in South Africa. Using an efficient best-worst design, 201 face-to-face interviews were conducted in Soweto, eliciting dual responses on cost, in-vehicle time, first/last-mile effort, comfort and safety for both public and private transport options. Mixed-logit best-worst models capture unobserved taste heterogeneity and deliver the country’s first mode-specific elasticities and willingness-to-pay measures. Results show no systematic behavioural differences between workers and adult students. Instead, attribute valuations are dominated by safety concerns. The willingness to pay for a “very safe” service is over four times that for a one-hour reduction in travel time. Elasticities confirm that safety improvements have the greatest potential to shift demand, whereas marginal fare increases sharply deter low-income users. The findings stress that enhancing perceived and actual safety is a prerequisite for sustainable mode shift in Gauteng. They also provide policy-ready parameters for appraisal of bus, rail and minibus-taxi upgrades in similarly segregated African cities. 2025-05-30T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33947 Low Cost Flat Public Fare Policy: Induced Demand, Mode Switching and Policy Beneficiaries Rose, John M.; Pellegrini, Andrea; Hensher, David A.; Beck, Matthew J. This study analyses six waves of cross-sectional survey data collected both before and after the introduction of a $0.50 flat fare structure across all public transport modes operating within Queensland Australia. The frequency of public transport trips is reported from 650 to 700 respondents per wave across each of the six waves of data collection, including information on trips that are reported as being trips that would have occurred irrespective of the low fare structure, trips that occurred solely as a result of the low flat fare structuring being introduced, and public transport trips that involve switching to public transport modes from some other mode of transport. Our findings suggest that the low fare structure led to increased public transport trips due to induced demand, with much less scope for mode switching behaviour. Further, the primary beneficiaries of the fare policy appear to be younger lower income individuals and/or those who are already regular public transport users. As such, consistent with the introduction of low or zero fare policies in other jurisdictions, the introduction of a flat $0.50 fare in Queensland has resulted in increased public transport patronage for some groups, while only limited mode switching behaviour is observed to have occurred. 2025-05-29T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33941 A comparative analysis of the drivers and outcomes of work, location and commuting choices of the office only, hybrid, and home/other location only workers Wei, Edward; Hensher, David A. Hybrid work in an office and non-office locations on the same or different days, has become a mainstream work pattern in addition to only working in the office or working from home (WFH). This paper compares the three work groups within a framework covering drivers and outcomes for interconnected work patterns, location and commuting choices, using survey data of 981 randomly sampled employees in Australia. The research goes beyond the socioeconomic characteristics of employees to examine other reasons why the three groups choose the way they work and commute, and their work-related motivation, performance and wellbeing. The research reveals the following key findings: 1) Having the highest level of motivation drives hybrid workers to work hard with more working hours than other groups. The long working hours, however, have a detrimental effect on their wellbeing and job performance, despite the highest level of job satisfaction. However, they perform best in terms of contextual performance when more responsibilities and challenges are present. 2) The WFH/other only group has the healthiest wellbeing and the least counterproductive work behaviour on job performance. This suggests that work location is not the key reason for poor job performance and hence productivity. 3) The office-only workers have the best task performance as well as the second-best performance for contextual performance where more responsibilities and challenges are required. 4) A discrete choice model for the three groups suggests that commuting and work patterns for each day of the week (DoW) and time of the day (ToD), together with roles in the organisation, enable us to predict whether employees are likely to belong to one of three work-location alternatives. These findings suggest a need to shift the focus of work and transport policy from the predominate focus on location to other work-related issues, such as work-related wellbeing, and to consider ways to recognise better work arrangements as a significant contributor to improved workforce performance. 2025-05-27T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33870 Introducing the Time Factor into the Economic Framework of a Static General Equilibrium Model Truong, Truong P.; Stone, Alastair; Beck, Maris Time is an important ‘factor’ or ‘input’ into many economic activities, but up to now, the issue of time valuation has been considered mostly in a partial equilibrium framework such as in the context of travel time savings valuation. This does not allow for a more general consideration of the issue of time valuation especially in the wider context of an economy where almost any economic activity ‘takes time’. In a general equilibrium framework, however, the issue of time valuation seems to be neglected. This is because despite the fact that both production as well as consumption activities ‘take time’, production time is often considered only implicitly via the representation of the labour input: as a flow of labour service through time. Capital-time or machine-time, on the other hand, is ignored or masked under the representation of this input in the form of a stock rather than a flow (of capital services). Flow requires time, whereas stock is ‘timeless’. Therefore, it can be said that time is almost ‘absent’ in a (static) general equilibrium framework where, not only with regard to the issue about capital stock versus capital service flow (or utilization rate), in the long run as well as in the short run, but also with regard to the consideration of other so-called ‘fixed’ input, such land, natural or environmental resource stocks. These stocks are often taken into consideration but only with regard to the measurement of the (static) wealth of an individual or of a nation, but not with regard to the flow of the income which is derived from the activities of the individual or the nation (activities take time). In this paper, we consider the time factor in the framework of a ‘comparative static’ general equilibrium economic model because even here the operation of the time factor is still present and important and can affect the valuation (or costing) of many economic activities albeit in an implicit and subtle way. 2025-05-06T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33867 Profiling future passenger transport initiatives that garner community support as a guide to identify the growing role of active and micro-mobility modes: a MDCEV model Balbontin, Camila; Hensher, David A.; Wei, Edward; Liu, Wen This paper examines the factors influencing the adoption and frequency of use of sustainable transport modes including walking, cycling, electric bicycles, electric vehicles, and public transport, for different trip purposes. Using a two-stage stated preference experiment in metropolitan Australia, we use a mixed multinomial logit model (MML) model to estimate the probability of adopting door-to-door travel alternatives, followed by a multiple discrete-continuous extreme value (MDCEV) model to capture the number of weekly trips taken by mode and purpose. Results show that trip purpose plays a significant role in mode selection, with commuting trips associated with greater willingness to shift to active and electric modes, especially when infrastructure quality is high. In contrast, shopping and personal business trips are more sensitive to access mode and mode experience. E-bikes emerge as a flexible option for both commuting and recreational trips, while walking is mainly preferred for short, non-commute travel. The findings underscore the importance of purpose-specific strategies and high-quality infrastructure in promoting sustainable and integrated mobility futures. 2025-05-05T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33407.2 Estimating gasoline demand under electric vehicle adoption: A spatial model for Brazil Prolo, Sergio; Pellegrini, Andrea; Junior, Werner Kraus; Coelhoc, Alexandre Hering; Rose, John We investigate gasoline demand growth in Brazil over a 16-year period, assessing its response to electric vehicle (EV) adoption and taxation measures. Using a spatial-based econometric model with data from 2006 to 2021 across all Brazilian states, we observe that annual gasoline sales nearly doubled from 2006 to 2014, reaching 0.22 m³ per capita, and then stabilized. Our model reveals that the EV motorization rate negatively impacts gasoline demand, with an elasticity of -0.126, compared to 0.609 for internal combustion engine vehicles. The results show that aggressive fuel taxation alone is insufficient to achieve long-term reductions in demand. However, fleet electrification is more effective, potentially reducing per capita gasoline consumption by 90% between 2021 and 2034. A combined approach integrating taxation and electrification offers the most efficient pathway for reducing demand while generating revenue for public investment in Brazil’s transition to a carbonfree transportation sector. 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33842 Managing Paradoxical Trade-Offs: Sustainability and Diversification Strategies of Supply Managers Fahimnia, Ben; Collins, Andrew; Moritz, Brent This paper investigates how practicing supply managers evaluate the paradoxical trade-offs of environmental and social sustainability relative to cost and supply diversification. Although sustainable business practices are important, firms often struggle to translate these goals into actions. As sourcing decisions are key to sustainable supply chains, we investigate how managers make trade-offs in supplier selection. We completed a discrete choice experiment with 217 experienced professionals, with realistic levels based on observed supplier evaluations. We show how these practicing supply managers value and trade-off between location diversification, environmental sustainability, and social sustainability. We found that managers resisted selecting new suppliers with worse sustainability profiles and were willing to incur slightly higher costs for suppliers with better environmental and social performance. These results were stronger for managers at lower levels of the firm. Managers also valued environmental performance more than social performance, and lower-level managers were more likely to view these as substitutes. Specific to risk management, supply managers were willing to pay more for increased geographic diversification of the suppliers, even if adding diversification resulted in poorer environmental performance. However, they were reluctant to add new suppliers within the same country unless doing so also improved environmental performance. Understanding how practicing supply chain professionals value and trade-off competing priorities when selecting suppliers can help companies manage risk and improve environmental and social sustainability. 2025-04-28T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33631.2 Nothing gained from overcrowding: a general population equilibrium Day, Christopher Following two centuries of rapid population growth, fertility rates in developed economies have declined below replacement levels. This raises an important demographic question concerning the drivers of future fertility rates in post demographic transition societies. I propose a general population equilibrium framework which argues that the decline in fertility rates below replacement levels in wealthy economies is in response to a range of pressures associated with a growing and affluent population. The lag between declining mortality rates and birth rates caused the population to overshoot what I term its “general equilibrium”. In consequence, cost of living pressures, environmental degradation and employment market competition intensified within developed economies. These forces are inconducive to child rearing. In response, the population declines until the general population equilibrium is attained. The equilibrium point is identified as the population size at which a society chooses, on aggregate, to achieve replacement level fertility given the resources and technology available. Significant policy implications emerge from this interpretation. Population policies aimed at countering an ageing demographic structure, such as through promoting inbound net migration or higher fertility rates, may only delay a return to an equilibrium population and resource profile. 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33702 Are users ready to accept fully flexible walking in on-demand mobility? Pellegrini, Andrea; Fielbaum, Andres On-demand ride pooling benefits from updating its routing decisions in real-time as new information becomes available, as well as from optimising the pickup and drop off (PUDO) points to avoid long detours. Both features indicate that it could be plausible to implement flexible walking, i.e., deciding the PUDO points dynamically, as opposed to informing users upfront. However, this could reduce the reliability of ride pooling thereby influencing the user experience. In this paper, we analyse data extracted from a labelled discrete choice experiment, consisting of three distinct ride pooling alternatives: door-to-door, fixed walking where walking time is informed upfront, and flexible walking where walking time is expressed as a time interval. Each alternative is further described by the following battery of attributes: price, in vehicle and waiting times, and emission savings compared to conventional petrol vehicles. The empirical analysis is performed via the density de-compositional version of the non parametric random effects Logit Mixed Logit model. Our main findings are as follows: i) There is a discontinuous zero-walk effect: passengers strongly prefer door-to-door services to walking even a minimal distance; ii) Users prefer to know their walking direction, as the willingness to pay to reduce walking time is significantly higher when the PUDO point is not fixed in advance; iii) The so-called reliability ratio, which compares the value of reliability to the value of time, is approximately 0.68 for walking time — significantly greater than previous values obtained for either waiting or in-vehicle time indicating that reliability is relatively more important for walking. All of this implies that flexible walking would be desirable only if the operational benefits are very large. On the other hand, those three findings reflect the average, but we do identify a percentage of the population willing to embrace flexible walking, suggesting that offering both fixed and flexible times to the users can be the best option. 2025-03-14T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33603 The MaaS Blueprint for Regional Towns and Rural Hinterlands Nelson, John D.; Mulley, Corinne; Hensher, David A.; Ho, Chinh; Xi, Haoning; Balbontin, Camila This Blueprint document presents a vision for how transport services in rural and regional areas in the NSW context could be better organised to meet the needs of residents and visitors. The Blueprint features a mobility framework for Rural and Regional MaaS which is multi-modal (including all modes available, including the private car) and multi-service (e.g., non-mobility services such as parcel deliveries, library services, food and medicine distribution, media streaming). The Blueprint also provides a focus on decarbonising transport and combatting social exclusion. 2025-02-07T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33602 The influence of flexi-time and flexi-place work on online ordering expenditure Hensher, David A.; Pellegrini, Andrea; Wei, Edward In recent years we have seen a tsunami of change in both the way in which work is performed by location, when, and the quantum of hours, which is now seen as flexi-place and flexitime, together with the growth annually in online shopping. These two phenomena may be related to working from home all day and/or a blended or hybrid workday (part in the main office and part elsewhere) may have contributed to boosting online ordering. In this paper, we estimate a Tobit regression model with a zero-corner solution to explore the interplay between the amount of money spent on online shopping and whether the hours working from home and/or hybrid work results in an increase in expenditure on online ordering. There appears to be little evidence in the research literature given to this relationship. We draw on a March 2024 survey for Australia to investigate the presence of a link, and we find that there are systematic differences, with a higher incidence of online expenditure associated with a higher probability of working from home all day or on a blended workday. Partial effects estimates suggest a statistically significant difference, and as the mix of flexitime and flexi-place changes over time, we can expect a noticeable response in the quantum of online shopping expenditure. 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33548 Systematic assessment of push and pull initiatives in behavioural responses associated with public transport fares, service frequency, car-related tolls, distance-based road user charges, and parking charges Hensher, David A.; Wei, Edward; Liu, Wen There has been a constant flow of empirical evidence suggesting the likely modal trip impact that stand-alone policy initiatives such as public transport fares or service frequency and road pricing reforms (be it tolls or distance-based charging) have on the change in travel behaviour. While the evidence, typically converted to mean direct elasticity and cross elasticity modal estimates, is informative, there is a dearth of empirical evidence on elasticities associated with policy initiatives that combine policies such as a public transport fare or service frequency change and a car-related toll and /or distance-based charge and/or parking charges. This paper investigates the one-way trip and arc elasticity impacts of stand-alone policy initiatives and compares the two elasticity effects when push and pull policy initiatives are at play. We find not only that there are asymmetric effects according to whether the policy involves an increase or a decrease, but that the combined policy initiatives suggest very different mean arc elasticity impacts, opening up opportunities for behavioural changes that are not obtained to the same extent from a stand-alone policy initiative. Each policy by itself generally, although not always, has a lower relative elasticity compared to when it is combined with another policy. We use the advanced Metroscan integrated transport and land use strategic model system to obtain the evidence for 2024 in the Sydney Metropolitan Area. 2025-01-24T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33488 Measuring Public Transport Accessibility – A Review and Future Directions Perera, Supun S.; Zareh Andaryan, Sam; Bell, Michael G.H.; McCabe, Graham Achieving sustainable transport targets in the context of population growth requires a significant shift from private vehicle use to public transport (PT). To enable this transition, PT services must provide accessible and efficient connections between passengers' origins and desired destinations, particularly for recurring, peak-period commuting trips. This study reviews existing methods for measuring PT accessibility, highlighting the strengths and limitations of various accessibility metrics. This work emphasises the need for a comprehensive PT accessibility metric that accounts for both supply and demand dynamics. Finally, in light of Sydney's newly announced Transport-Oriented Development (TOD) precincts, we discuss how a refined PT accessibility metric can guide practitioners and policymakers in addressing PT supply-demand imbalances. 2024-12-18T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33347 Factor-Analytic Specifications of Mixed Logit Coote, Leonard V.; Magor, Thomas J.; Marley, A. A. J.; Wei, Edward Factor-analytic specifications of mixed logit are especially useful in representing patterns of preference heterogeneity. The latent variables of factor-analytic specifications represent unobserved sources of heterogeneity in the effects of the explanators of the mixed logit model. One such application is market structure analysis – an important topic within the marketing literature on brand choice. This paper reports an analysis of brand preferences measured using best-worst Type I (the object case) and paired-comparison methods. The analysis leverages the within-subjects design – the same respondents complete both methods. The paper makes an empirical contribution based on the specification and testing of the theoretical model of interest – a multitrait-multimethod (MT-MM) specification of mixed logit (a type of factor-analytic specification). The MT-MM model partitions the heterogeneity into structural, trait, and method components and is compared to three rival specifications. The MT-MM model is more parsimonious, offers better fit (based on measures of absolute and comparative fit), and has better interpretations than the competing models. We suggest future applications of the MT-MM model that should be of interest to choice modellers in a range of fields. The factor-analytic approach opens a new pathway for developing and testing theory of preference heterogeneity in a systematic way. 2024-12-02T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33298 Exploring Temporal Stability in Travel Attitudes Mulley, Corinne; Van Acker, Veronique Many travel behaviour studies focus on the interaction between attitudes and travel behaviour, but in doing so have used a multitude of attitude measurements. These studies often use surveys where respondents are asked to indicate their level of agreement with a set of attitudinal statements. However, this set of statements sometimes varies very widely between studies, making it difficult to compare results across studies as well as complicating a thorough understanding of the motivations underlying travel. Whilst having a common set of statements would be helpful in comparing across studies, this depends on identifying a set of statements which are both temporally stable and stable across contexts. This paper addresses the first of these requirements using data collected from an online survey where the same set of attitudinal statements was asked in an online survey organized in 2017 and 2020 in the Greater Metropolitan Area of Sydney, NSW, Australia. Findings indicate that the same type of travel attitudes do indeed persist over time with these travel attitudes remain characterized by (largely) the same set of attitudinal statements, indicating at least temporal stability in the measurement of travel attitudes in a single context. Findings of this paper can thus be helpful in reducing the heterogeneity of attitudinal statements included in travel surveys. 2024-11-21T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33274 A Nexus or Not? A First Examination of Cost-of-Living Concern, Neighbourhood Perceptions, Active Travel, and Wellbeing in Cities Beck, Matthew J.; Greaves, Stephen This paper represents an important first step in the literature, to look at potential links between cost-of-living stress and the perceptions of local neighbourhoods, under the hypothesis that greater pressure about housing affordability, transportation costs, or indeed cost overall could lead to a degradation in how the neighbourhood within which a person lives is perceived. We do find confirmation that cost-of-living goes beyond technical measure of housing stress and indeed beyond just housing stress alone. Of particular relevance is that those who could be classified as having rising concern (consumables) have among the highest levels of relative stress. This is to be expected as there are many reports in the general media about spending on eating out and indeed cutting back on meals prepared at home, as being initial strategies to reduce spending. Such cuts to spending are also likely to spill over into discretionary trip making and travel activity patterns overall. We find that there is generally just as much concern about the rising cost of fuel, which is directly related to trip making, further compounding transport accessibility and equity. Overall, our first attempt to investigate the potential nexus of cost-of-living, neighbourhood perception, wellbeing, physical activity and active travel, produces enough evidence and insight to establish that there are potential links which are likely to play out in unknown ways during cost-of-living crises. We argue that our results are sufficient enough that research should extend them to transportation costs and trip making more generally under the current spike in general prices and urge other researchers to consider building on these insights. 2024-11-15T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33273 Suitable Placement for On-demand Transport (SPOT): A systematic approach to network integration Ho, Chinh Q.; Kieu, Minh; Yeh, Chia-Jung This paper presents a bottom-up approach to designing on-demand transport (ODT) systems, emphasising an evidence-based methodology. A critical review of existing ODT systems is conducted, focusing on identifying the most suitable market segments and environments for ODT deployment. This review forms the basis for developing a systematic methodology that integrates known success factors in the design of new systems in the pursuit of network integration. We demonstrate the scalability and transferability of the developed methodology using two case studies and show how the proposed method can support the selection of optional service areas and assess their impacts on local community. These case studies provide practical insights into the application of the methodology in diverse settings, underscoring its adaptability and effectiveness in different market conditions. Furthermore, the paper addresses equity issues in public transport service provision. It critically examines how existing bus services can be restructured to enhance network efficiency and social equity, particularly in underserved areas. 2024-11-15T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33272 Job Performance, Productivity, and the Roles of Employee Motivation and Wellbeing in Employees' Work Arrangement Choices Wei, Edward; Hensher, David A. Productivity has been the focus of recent debates on work location, especially when working from home. This research investigates the framework and latent constructs of what productivity represents for job performance, covering task and contextual performance and counterproductive work behaviour. The research establishes the structural connections between employee motivation factors such as intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and work-related wellbeing factors, covering job competence and aspiration and their impact on job performance. Using a national survey of nearly 1,000 Australian workers, the research uses a structural equation model (SEM), segment profiling, and a hybrid logit choice model to achieve several research objectives. These objectives achieved include: 1) Testing the measurement models of job performance, employee motivation, and work-related wellbeing, then revealing their structural relationships and their impact on subjective productivity and job satisfaction; 2) Profiling three distinct workforce segments of main office only workers, hybrid workers, and working from home and other places only workers by their working patterns, hours, productivity, job satisfaction and levels of job performance, motivation and wellbeing; and 3) Embedding latent motivation and wellbeing into the hybrid choice model on workplace choices to directly show the effects of latent variables on workplace choices. The research identifies the importance of maintaining a high level of motivation in a task and continuous performance and the importance of work-related wellbeing in preventing counterproductive behaviour. The findings suggest shifting the focus from workplace choice to maintaining the status of work-related wellbeing, especially among hybrid workers who typically have relatively heavy workloads and work long hours. 2024-11-15T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33218 Establishing Evidence of Initiatives undertaken by Non-Mobility Service Providers that are aligned with Sustainable Travel Behaviour Change as a next generation focus of MaaS as MaaF Hensher, David A.; Nelson, John D.; Balbontin, Camila; Ho, Chinh Q.; Wei, Edward; Mulley, Corinne; Kandanaarachchi, Thiranjaya Mobility as a Service (MaaS) has garnered a significant amount of interest over the last 15 years and yet we have very little to show in Western nations in terms of its influence on travel behaviour aligned with sustainability goals, as well as an encouraging business case with or without an injection of significant government subsidy or private venture capital. While we see claimed success in Japan and China, this is the result of a government led and controlled initiative with extensive subsidy, something which appears to be beyond possibility in most countries. Certainly, to date, there are examples of Governments (e.g., across Europe) claiming interest and commitment but no financial support beyond existing subsidy to public transport available to all users. In researching MaaS over the last 10 years, we have come to the position that its future may reside in a greater involvement of non-mobility service providers (NMSPs) in recognition that a multi-service focus may offer up some real prospects of not only delivering desirable travel behaviour change but in facilitating a scalable outcome. Mobility as a Feature (MaaF) is one interpretation of this revised eco-system and has informed us of the potential opportunities that can be invoked through participation of NMSPs. To understand whether this has prospects, a survey in six countries in 2024 was undertaken to identify initiatives that are already in place within private enterprise and government agencies that align well with contributing to sustainable travel behaviour goals. The results suggest that much is already happening, but it has not been recognised as a MaaS/MaaF-like initiative. This paper presents the evidence and suggests a re-interpretation of what a future MaaS portfolio may look like, noting that this scalable future does not have to depend on the transport service providers working together other than their presence in providing services in the market to anyone wishing to use them. The focus historically on transport service providers appears to have been a major roadblock in progressing MaaS. 2024-10-28T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33203 Establishing a Framework of Support to Scale in Mobility as a Service: Consolidated insights from the literature on potential governance frameworks Kandanaarachchi, Thiranjaya; Nelson, John D.; Hensher, David A.; Mulley, Corinne; Wei, Edward; Ho, Chinh Q. A sustainable and reliable Mobility as a Service (MaaS) ecosystem must be informed by the interests of the diverse set of stakeholders which include providers and users of MaaS as well as other societal beneficiaries. Despite numerous proposed MaaS models, to date few have flourished beyond initial trials with many failing to demonstrate a business case and change travel behaviour in sustainable ways. In this paper we go beyond the traditional set of transport service providers to investigate ways in which MaaS might be redeemed and scalable. To do this, we examine a number of themes designed to obtain insights into the roles that both mobility and non-mobility service providers might play in future MaaS settings. We position this broadening of participants within a governance framework that accommodates uni-modal and multi-modal mobility offerings combined with services provided by non-mobility service providers, referred to as MaaS as a Feature (MaaF). Incentives and rewards are an essential feature of this ecosystem with non-mobility service providers an essential feature of any MaaS consideration if it is to have a chance of being scalable. 2024-10-22T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33053 COVID-19 and its influence on the propensity to Work from Home between March 2020 and June 2021 Hensher, David A.; Beck, Matthew J.; Balbontin, Camila The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the world of work. With growing support and preference revelation from both employees and employers, we might anticipate a settling in of working from home around one to two days a week, varying by occupation depending on the ability to work remotely. Although there are a growing number of studies that have analysed data collected at a point in time or over time during the pandemic, there is now sufficient time and data to treat the waves of collected data as a repeated cross section that is jointly modelled to assess systematically, the changing roles of various influences on the proportion of working days that are worked from home. This paper estimates random effects regression models for the Greater Sydney Metropolitan Area and South East Queensland over four waves of data collected in 2020 and 2021, where this last one represents a period with almost full vaccinations and minimum restrictions (i.e., ‘new normal’). By jointly estimating four waves of data within a single modelling framework, we are able to track the changing roles of the influences found to be statistically significant across the waves. The elasticity outputs reveal how these influences impact on the propensity to WFH, giving clues on whether we were starting to see a stabilisation of WFH activity mid-way in the pandemic period that can be reflective of a ‘new normal’. Results are very supportive of employees’ preferences, suggesting that those that feel the same or more productive when WFH relative to going to the office, are more likely to WFH relative to those that feel less productive. 2024-09-05T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/32914 Accounting for the Location and Allocation of Working Hours throughout the Working Week: A Discrete-Continuous Choice model Hensher, David A.; Wei, Edward; Pellegrini, Andrea As COVID-19 becomes a close distant memory for many, we are seeing the impact it has had on where working hours throughout the week are being undertaken. It is not unreasonable to assume that the support for greater flexibility in where work is completed compared to pre-COVID-19 is here to stay and that transport planning needs to move this new pattern of location behaviour centre stage in the revision of strategic transport models. Throughout a seven-day week, we are seeing days in which an individual goes to the main office all day or works from home all day, or undertakes a blended location workday, or does not work at all on a particular day. These four alternatives for each day of the week define a discrete choice model setting which together with the actual hours worked at each location on each day represents a discrete-continuous modelling setting. The paper is interested in identifying where work takes place and the committed hours for each day of the week and treats the seven days of the week as an instantaneous panel. For days where there is commuting involved, we split the discrete alternatives to account for whether commuting occurs during the peak or off-peak period of a day, which is important in terms of the commuting activities in the transport network. We account for the presence of error correlation between the discrete (mixed logit with error components) and continuous (seemingly unrelated regression equations) choices through a selectivity correction for each alternative where it is shown to be statistically significant. A series of direct elasticities provide behaviourally informative evidence on the key drivers of the choice amongst the discrete location alternatives and the continuous choice of hours associated with each. The model system has a very practical feature, in the sense that it can be easily programmed into a strategic transport model system in order to adjust commuting travel activity by mode and time of day in the presence of a more flexible and hence less rigid profiling of when and where work takes place. 2024-08-08T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/32813 Incorporation of Endogenous Exit Capacities in Node Models with Various Movement Exit Speeds Gong, Xiaolin; Raadsen, Mark P.H.; Bliemer, Michiel C.J. In macroscopic traffic assignment, the node model is fundamental for accurately capturing traffic dynamics at junctions and intersections, which are often the primary sources of travel delays in urban networks. The precision of the node model is important for predicting delays and managing flows, which directly impacts traffic condition simulations, congestion management, and network performance optimisation. However, existing node models typically assume exogenous exit capacities for links, movement, or lanes feeding the node. They do so by either assuming fixed capacities or adjusting externally based on traffic control. This assumption often overlooks variations in exit capacities caused by flow compositions and vehicle turning behaviours, leading to less reliable predictions and reduced applicability in real-world scenarios. This study proposes a novel approach that can achieve endogenous exit capacities within the node model. Rather than dynamically adjusting exit capacities, our approach moderates the flow rates endogenously with flow compositions. This adjustment is made by scaling inflows for each movement inversely proportional to their turn speeds in the pre-processing stage and rescaling outflows in the postprocessing stage without requiring modifications to the node model itself. Additionally, this study presents a solution algorithm consistent with our proposed method. Two numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the feasibility and capability of this approach. The results indicate that the node model that does not consider endogenous exit capacities may either overestimate or, in rare cases, underestimate the outflows. 2024-07-18T00:00:00Z