Economics and Finance

From March 2020 through March 2021, researchers monitored three San Francisco Bay Area transit agencies: two large – Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District (AC Transit), Valley Transportation Authority (VTA); and one small – Tri Delta Transit. As the lockdown was imposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, white-collar commuters, students, and the elderly stopped using public transit. Initially, ridership fell 90 percent, and then over the year slowly climbed to less than 50 percent for AC Transit and VTA, and to around 60 percent for Tri Delta Transit. The pace of recovery was not steady...

This report presents a benefit and cost study of a Cooperative High‐Accuracy LOcation (C‐HALO) service. A High Accuracy Location service should be ubiquitous and reliable as the GPS constellation. A survey of the literature on location services reveals a body of work on the benefits of a high accuracy location service. Focusing on road travel, benefits are estimated to be between $160-$320 billion dollars over slightly more than 20 years. The benefits arise from smoother traffic flow on the roads leading to reduced travel delays, and fewer accidents leading to reduced injuries and saved...

In the United States, public transit agencies are increasingly growing interested in deploying open-loop payment systems for public transit fare payments. This interest is based on the benefits these systems can offer, from faster boarding times to the potential of attracting more riders. Open-loop fare payment systems’ popularity is evidenced by the growing number of American public transit agencies who have deployed them; most of whom (63%) are located in California. The overlap between public transit riders who are both transit-dependent and financially excluded (i.e., have no or...

Congestion pricing improves economic efficiency, but it may lead to inequitable outcomes. A key policy priority in California is identifying ways to avoid the hardship of congestion pricing on low income or other vulnerable populations. This study uses data from a congestion pricing experiment in the Seattle metro area to examine the feasibility of using revenue from congestion pricing to compensate those harmed by the policy. Results indicate that the initial burden of congestion pricing is highly inequitable, with the lowest income drivers paying an average of 7 percent of their weekly...