Commuters' valuation of travel time variability in Barcelona

The value given by commuters to the variability of travel times is empirically analysed using stated preference data from Barcelona (Spain). Respondents are asked to choose between alternatives that differ in terms of cost, average travel time, variability of travel times and departure time. Different specifications of a scheduling choice model are used to measure the influence of various socioeconomic characteristics. Our results show that travel time variability.

Location of multiple server common service centers or public facilities for minimizing general congestion and travel cost functions

We propose a model and solution methods, for locating a fixed number ofmultiple-server, congestible common service centers or congestible publicfacilities. Locations are chosen so to minimize consumers congestion (orqueuing) and travel costs, considering that all the demand must be served.Customers choose the facilities to which they travel in order to receiveservice at minimum travel and congestion cost. As a proxy for thiscriterion, total travel and waiting costs are minimized. The travel costis a general function of the origin and destination of the demand, whilethe congestion cost is a general function of the number of customers inqueue at the facilities.

Rockfall travel distance analysis by using empirical models (Solà d'Andorra la Vella, Central Pyrenees)

The prediction of rockfall travel distance below a rock cliff is an indispensable activity in rockfall susceptibility, hazard and risk assessment. Although the size of the detached rock mass may differ considerably at each specific rock cliff, small rockfall (<100 m3) is the most frequent process. Empirical models may provide us with suitable information for predicting the travel distance of small rockfalls over an extensive area at a medium scale (1:100 000¿1:25 000). "Solà d'Andorra la Vella" is a rocky slope located close to the town of Andorra la Vella, where the government has been documenting rockfalls since 1999. This documentation consists in mapping the release point and the individual fallen blocks immediately after the event. The documentation of historical rockfalls by morphological analysis, eye-witness accounts and historical images serve to increase available information. In total, data from twenty small rockfalls have been gathered which reveal an amount of a hundred individual fallen rock blocks. The data acquired has been used to check the reliability of the main empirical models widely adopted (reach and shadow angle models) and to analyse the influence of parameters which affecting the travel distance (rockfall size, height of fall along the rock cliff and volume of the individual fallen rock block). For predicting travel distances in maps with medium scales, a method has been proposed based on the "reach probability" concept. The accuracy of results has been tested from the line entailing the farthest fallen boulders which represents the maximum travel distance of past rockfalls. The paper concludes with a discussion of the application of both empirical models to other study areas.

Impact of quality and environmental investment on business competitiveness and profitability: The case of travel agencies

Few studies have examined the combined effect of implementing quality and environmental management within the service sector. This void is more evident if we focus on segments in which small businesses predominate and even more so if we look for highly competitive sectors that are very variable and that have high business mortality. After analysing 198 surveys of Spanish travel agency managers using structural equations, it can be concluded that practices of quality management have a significant direct impact on business competitiveness but not on this business's financial results, at least directly. However, there is a significant relationship between environmental management practices and economic benefits. This article suggests that commitment to quality and the environment can allow small businesses in the service sector to have a competitive advantage that will separate surviving and ceased operations, particularly in sectors that are rapidly evolving and highly competitive.

An overview of the proposal for a new Package Travel Directive

After an endless wait, a proposal for a new Package Travel Directive repealing Directive 90/314/EEC1 was presented on 9 July 2013 (hereafter, the Proposal).This article is aimed at providing an overall view of the Proposal. I will address the following issues: The concept of traveller; online package holidays and assisted travel arrangements; information requirements; a new particular right of withdrawal for package travel; other changes to the contract before the start of the package; performance of the Package; and insolvency protection. Some early concluding remarks are made as to when a future Package Travel Directive might take place at some future date

Demand and revenue implications of an integrated public transport policy: the case of Madrid

One of the most popular options for promoting public transport use is the provision of an integrated and high quality public transport system. This was the strategy adopted by the regional government in Madrid in 1986 and since then public transport patronage has increased by more than 50%. This paper has two objectives. The first is to identify the factors underlying the significant increase in the demand for public transport in Madrid. To do this we estimate an aggregate demand function for bus and underground trips, which allows us to obtain the demand elasticities with respect to the main attributes of public transport services and also to calculate the long-term impact of changes in those explanatory variables on patronage. The second objective is to evaluate the impact on revenue derived from the introduction of the travel card scheme, and to discuss the consequences on revenue of changes in the relative fare levels of different types of ticket without substantially affecting patronage. This latter issue is addressed by estimating a matrix of own and cross-price elasticities for different ticket types.

Airline competition and network structure

This paper characterizes the equilibria in airline networks and their welfare implications in an unregulated environment. Competing airlines may adopt either fully-connected (FC) or hub-and-spoke (HS) network structures; and passengers exhibiting low brand loyalty to their preferred carrier choose an outside option to travel so that markets are partially served by airlines. In this context, carriers adopt hubbing strategies when costs are sufficiently low, and asymmetric equilibria where one carrier chooses a FC strategy and the other chooses a HS strategy may arise. Quite interestingly, flight frequency can become excessive under HS network configurations.

Industrial location at a local level: some comments about the territorial level of the analysis

This paper contributes to the existing literature on industrial location by discussing some issues regarding the territorial levels that have been used in location analysis. We analyse which could be the advantages and disadvantages of performing locational analysis at a different local levels. We use data for new manufacturing firms located at municipality, county and travel to work areas level. We show that location determinants vary according to the territorial level used in the analysis, so we conclude that the level at which we perform the investigation should be carefully selected. Keywords: industrial location, cities, agglomeration economies, count data models.

Glocalization as a generic entrepreneurial strategy

Nobody would deny that we today live in a globalized world. Our digitalized living daily revises our worldwide mindmaps. Thanks to free trade and travel our material and social worlds have become global as well. This radical sociocultural change has since the last decade been preached all over the world with public institutions and business-interest organizations as megaphones. Since those carrying the globalization message mainly represent nations or super-nations such as the EU, the viewpoints of lower-level actors such as regions, localities, firms and individual citizens have seldom been considered. Paternalistically (super-)national bodies have instructured its subjects, not the least the many small firms that populate the (private) economy, what action to take. The basic message is: submit to the global forces – local is not beautiful any longer.

Yakimbo

Treball de recerca realitzat per alumnes d'ensenyament secundari i guardonat amb un Premi CIRIT per fomentar l'esperit científic del Jovent l'any 2009. Aquest treball és una creació d’un projecte empresarial, és a dir, una planificació estratègica que té per objectiu analitzar la viabilitat, examinar els objectius i descobrir els inconvenients del mateix. Aquest projecte final està enfocat al turisme i consisteix en crear una agència de viatges. S’ha decidit crear una agència de viatges de baix cost destinada principalment als joves, ja que aquest sector de població busca una manera de viatjar econòmica que combini diversió i cultura. El treball es basa en la recerca i aplicació de la informació sobre la idea inicial. En primer lloc, per tal de realitzar-lo s’ha fet un projecte d’empresa, un estudi de mercat i de l’entorn amb les seves corresponents enquestes i un pla de marketing. En segon lloc, s’ha realitzat una definició del mercat i la comunicació, una determinació dels preus i organització de les vendes així com una identificació i organització de l’empresa i els seus productes. Per últim, s’ha fet un estudi econòmic i financer del projecte i, les conclusions extretes d’aquest, diuen que el nostre projecte serà viable i tindrà un èxit tècnic.

Anàlisi dels fluxos d'aigua, energia i mobilitat a cinc nuclis turístics de Menorca

Menorca és una illa del Mediterrani occidental i una important destinació turística. El turisme estival és un pilar de l’economia de l’illa i té implicacions en tots els aspectes d’aquesta. Una bona part dels turistes es concentren en nuclis turístics costaners dedicats a una única activitat (l’allotjament de turistes). En aquest projecte s’estudien els consums i els potencials de captació d’aigua i energia de cinc nuclis turístics menorquins i alguns dels seus establiments turístics i se n’avalua el potencial d’autosuficiència. També es fa un estudi de mobilitat dels turistes, a partir del qual es quantifica el cost energètic de la mobilitat i les emissions de CO2 que se’n deriven. Les eines utilitzades han estat enquestes i Sistemes d’Informació Geogràfica. Els resultats mostren que el consum hídric per persona és molt variable (de 98 a 466 litres diaris). El consum elèctric per persona és més homogeni que el d’aigua (entre 5 i 10 kWh·persona-1·dia-1 a nivell de nucli turístic) i presenta valors superiors en allotjaments del tipus hotel que del tipus apartaments. Els trajectes d’anada i tornada a l’illa amb avió o vaixell representen més del 80% del cost energètic total de les vacances a Menorca (aprox. 1 MWh per estada) i de les emissions de CO2 associades. Els turistes espanyols recorren un 180% més de distància en desplaçaments a l’interior de l’illa que els d’altres nacionalitats. L’aprofitament d’aigües pluvials podria cobrir menys del 25% de les necessitats hídriques de la majoria d’allotjaments turístics i entre el 28 i el 36% de les necessitats hídriques totals dels nuclis turístics, mantenint-se els nivells actuals de consum. La captació d’energia solar fotovoltaica in situ podria arribar a suplir entre el 50 i el 90% del consum d’energia elèctrica en els nuclis turístics i fins al 100% del mateix en alguns allotjaments turístics.

The impact of agglomeration effects and accessibility on wages

This paper contributes to the empirical literature on the effects of agglomeration and road accessibility on productivity of firms by looking at the case of Spain. We approach productivity indirectly by using individual wages allocated at the NUTS III level. We use a repeated cross-section of individual micro-data for the years 1995, 2002 and 2006. The availability of interprovincial travel time data for each of the three years allows controlling for transport improvements over the period by using a market potential variable. Additionally, agglomeration is approached by employment density and we control for localization economies, human capital externalities and a large set of individual and workplace characteristics. Estimating by instrumental variables, our results show a positive and significant effect of market accessibility on wages and non linear effect for employment density.

Wage effects from changes in local human capital in Britain

This paper examines the impact of local human capital on individuals’ wages through external effects. Employing wage regressions, it is found that changes in individuals’ wages are positively associated with changes in the shares of high-paid occupation workers in the British travel-to-work-areas for the late 1990s. I examine this positive association for different occupational groups (defined by pay) in order to disentangle between production function and consumer demand driven theoretical explanations. The wage effect is found to be stronger and significant for the bottom-paid occupational quintile compared to the middle-paid ones, and using also sectoral controls the paper argues to provide evidence for the existence of consumer demand effects.

Driving competition in local gasoline markets

Relevant market definition is still a key element of economic analysis of competition in the gasoline market. It is particularly difficult to handle when competition is local and market power is geographically constrained like is the case in the gasoline market. We analyse how the application of the hypothetical monopolist or Small but Significant Non-Transitory Increase in Prices (SSNIP) test performs for defining isochrones using only information on prices and distance among competitors. We conclude that geographic information systems can be very successfully used to define more precisely relevant geographic market in the gasoline retailing. The application to the Spanish gasoline market concludes that geographic relevant market is composed by 5-6 minutes of travel time. Localised market power should be taken into account when analysing the adverse effects of mergers and entry regulations in gasoline retailing. Only drawing small enough isochrones will drive competition in local markets because it is just close rivals that compete effectively with each other.

Projecte web "Viatges a Patrimonis de la Humanitat" (Ass. Amics Unesco Barcelona)

Treball Final Carrera sobre la gestió d'un projecte web, de gestió de continguts multimèdia, de creació i coordinació d'un equip de voluntaris per a la divulgació en línia i el foment dels viatges culturals als llocs Patrimoni de la Humanitat realitzats per una entitat intercultural catalana, Amics de la UNESCO de Barcelona.