March 30, 2005

My Old Child

Yesterday, I went to have another chat with my university mentor. I left the meeting with mixed emotions. On the one hand, it takes way more time, adjustments and meticulousness than I expected to put together a good research proposal. It takes way more juggling possible questions (judging their coherence, relevance, clarity, etcetera) than I envisaged. I guess that’s just part of the learning experience.

On the other hand, my mentor told me that judging from the talk we had, some of the information I need is already in my head. The two most important things I have to do now are: making my proposal more explicit (no, not in that way), ie adding graphs and figures, explaining phenomena (rather than just mentioning them and giving a source reference) adding a conceptual model to it, and to structure the information that I have already gathered. That should lead to a provisional chapter structure of my report. As soon as I have that, I can dump the knowledge bits in my head under the appropiate headers.

As I was leaving, I told my mentor that I liked studying the subject. Ah, he said. Pricing policy in transport, my old child (he researched it himself for his postgraduate thesis).

Indeed, the subject is at once endearing and paradoxical...

Christof

March 17, 2005

Worth taking a look

The Dutch website autoschadeportaal.nl featured this little report on the TNO-meeting of february (see: "Workshop in The Hague") :

"Meer steun 'Pay-as-you-drive' polis (04-03-2005)
Een kilometerafhankelijke verzekeringspremie kan bijdragen aan de verkeersveiligheid en aan het tegengaan van congestie en files. Dit zei Todd Litman, directeur van het Canadese Victoria Transport Policy Institute, tijdens een informatiebijeenkomst voor motorrijtuigenverzekeraars die door TNO en het ministerie van Verkeer en Waterstaat werd georganiseerd. Bij zo'n 'Pay-as-you-drive'-polis wordt de premie van motorrijtuigenverzekeringen afhankelijk gemaakt van het aantal gereden kilometers. Verzekeraars zouden zo'n polis de moeite waard vinden om nader te bestuderen".

In English: " More support for ´Pay-as-you-drive´ insurance
A mileage-dependent insurance premium can contribute to traffic safety and to congestion reduction, said Todd Litman, director of the Victoria Transport Policy institute , during a meeting organised by the Dutch transport ministry and TNO. (...) Insurers said it would be worthwhile to study PAYD".

I can subscribe to that!

Christof

March 13, 2005

PAYD for the IDF?

It was brought to my attention that PAZ, a large Israeli gas-station owner, offers PAYD insurance (via co-operating insurers) with a mileage check every time their insureds fill up with their special gas card.
I went to check the English version of their site: www.paz.co.il

The Israeli Defence Force is a big client of PAZ's. I can imagine them purchasing fuel, but I think it's unlikely that their 'vehicles' are insured PAYD, and that their mileage is checked and transmitted every time they fill up...

Christof

Quo Vadis?

I talked a little more about the setup of my research plan with both my university mentors and my sponsors at Centraal Beheer Achmea insurance company. Both have their wishes with regard to the setup of the project. I have tried to come up with a research goal and questions that both will find acceptable. I will discuss them this and the coming week.

My research goal: To find out whether the introduction of PAYD in the Neterlands can contribute to the transition to a more sustainable mobility

Research questions will be, amongst others:

- What is known about the environmental effects of variabilisation of mobility costs?
- Can PAYD be successfully introduced by individual Dutch insurance companies?

It is to be researched by making a critical synthesis of several existing ex ante studies, and, if obtainable, ex post studies also. This is to be done by selecting a number of criteria and ´scoring´ the respective studies on those criteria. In this way, the various assumptions underlying those studies are to be identified, and thus a kind of theoretical framework can be described.

The next step is to select one or more assumptions that can be empirically tested, by way of a survey.

That would be assumptions that either differ in the studies analyzed, or are considered controversial, for whatever reason.

Finally, the outcome of the survey is to be judged on its consequences for the way the aforementioned studies are to be valued.

At least, that´s what I have come up with so far.

The next step now is to further detail the scheme described above, ie select, formulate and motivate criteria, scope definition (only Dutch studies, also foreign ones, only recent ones?), and the operationalization of the key concepts (environmental effect, PAYD insurance, or, increasing variability of mobility cost in general)

Again, any comment whatsoever is welcome!

Christof

March 07, 2005

Reduce-your-mileage-a-go-go

It’s been quite a while since my last blog contribution, I am sorry to say. Last week was an extraordinarily busy one for me, particularly concerning Pay As You Drive activities. Ironically, I had to travel quite a lot of miles to make it to the meetings scheduled. In chronological order:

On Tuesday, March 1st I traveled from Apeldoorn to Utrecht and back (114 km), to speak to my university mentors. They helped me greatly with my search for research questions (more on that soon).

On Thursday, March 2nd I traveled to Delft and back (270 km) to attend a Connekt networking event. It was very interesting to see so many people involved with mobility development in the Netherlands gathered together. I met a maritime advisor, telemetry specialists, an urban construction engineer, government transport department officials, etcetera. It featured a presentation by a communications official from the department of economic affairs. The presentation and the chats afterwards gave me the impression that if the public parties involved in mobility development could be more transparent, and if the private parties could be less fragmented, then the science community could be better supplied with empirical tests and test results, which in turn…


Transumo (Transition to a sustainable mobility) is a program executed by Connekt.

On Friday, March 3rd I traveled to Groningen and back (266 km) to meet with a traffic researcher. This also was very worthwhile, especially since some of the hunches I developed concerning mobility got some confirmation. For instance, in 'The but for and the what if' it was suggested that those who drive less now and would save because of PAYD would use some of their savings to drive more after its introduction. There seems to be research ‘out there’ that confirms the existence of a certain percentage that families tend to spend out of their financial budgets, on mobility. The same seems to hold true for time budgets, which is interesting when considering congestion reduction. Also, during the oil crisis of 1973, research was done on how people react to dearer oil. It turned out the main response was not to scrap trips, nor to change modality (ie go by public transit or bike), but simply to buy a smaller, cheaper car. Naturally, I am eager to get my hands on all three studies. If they ring a bell with you, please let me know!

So, during one week, I traveled 650 kilometres in order to attend three meetings. I saved up my train tickets (yes, I went per public transit because no, I haven’t got my driving license yet) that totalled EUR 44,90. That totals EUR 0,069 per kilometre, a tariff not unlike a per-kilometre premium that could be charged to a younger or less experienced motorist. Such a person, driving 20.000 kilometres a year, would pay around EUR 1381/year for insurance.

So for the price of car insurance, I got the whole train trip!

Just don’t ask me what it was like waiting on train stations, with temperatures around and below – 6 centigrade, the heaviest snow in Holland in 20 years, and delays being the rule rather than the exception…

On the other hand, at Centraal Beheer insurance company I was quite busy helping clients report their car damage: slippery roads helped cause many a collision.

I guess right now, a hint of spring would make everybody happy...

Christof