The course draws on three primary textbooks, which are listed in the table below with the following abbreviations:
[S] = Small, Kenneth, and Erik T. Verhoef. The Economics of Urban Transportation. New York, NY: Routledge, 2007. ISBN: 9780415285155.
[M] = Gomez-Ibanez, Jose, William B. Tye, and Clifford Winston, eds. Essays in Transportation Economics and Policy: A Handbook in Honor of John R. Meyer. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780815731818.
[C] = Cascetta, Ennio. Transportation Systems Analysis: Models and Applications. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Springer, forthcoming in 2009. ISBN: 9780387758565.
| LEC # | TOPICS | READINGS | OPTIONAL READINGS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Introduction | |||
| 1 | Introduction | [S] Chapter 1 | |
| Demand | |||
| 2 | Overview of consumer theory | ||
| 3 | Discrete choice analysis I | [S] Chapter 2 | [M] Chapter 1; [C] Chapter 2 |
| 4 | Discrete choice analysis II | [S] Chapter 2 | [M] Chapter 1; [C] Chapter 2 |
| 5 | Travel demand modeling | Meyer, Michael, and Eric Miller. Urban Transportation Planning. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2000. ISBN: 9780072423327. (Read chapter 5.4) | [C] Chapter 4 |
| 6 | Freight demand | [C] Chapter 4.6 | [C] Chapter 4 |
| Public transportation | |||
| 7 | Organizational models | Rye, T., and Nigel H. M. Wilson. "The Urban Bus Situation in the UK: Recent Developments and a Case Study of Edinburgh." Paper presented at TRAIL Seminar on Competition, Public Transport and Service Innovations, March 2002, TU Delft, The Netherlands. | |
| 8 | Path choice models | Guo, Zhan, and Nigel H. M. Wilson. "Assessment of the Transfer Penalty for Transit Trips: A GIS-Based Disaggregate Modeling Approach." Transportation Research Record 1872 (2004): 10-18. | |
| The firm and its costs | |||
| 9 | Theory of the firm | ||
| 10 | Transportation costs | [M] Chapter 3 | |
| 11 | Midterm exam | ||
| Pricing | |||
| 12 | Pricing of transportation services: theory and practice I | [M] Chapter 4 | |
| 13 | Pricing of transportation services: theory and practice II | [S] Chapters 4.1.1, 4.2.1, 4.3, and 4.5 | [M] Chapter 6 |
| The maritime and port sector | |||
| 14 |
Analysis of the maritime and port sector I and II Guest lectures: Hilde Meersman and Eddy Van de Voorde, Department of Transport and Regional Economics, University of Antwerp | Meersman, Hilde, and Eddy Van de Voorde. "Dynamic Ports Within a Globalised World." In 17th International ITF/OECD Symposium on Transport Economics and Policy: Benefitting from Globalisation: Transport Sector Contribution and Policy Challenges. Paris, France: OECD Publishing, 2008, pp. 321-346. ISBN: 9789282101681. | Heaver, T., Hilde Meersman, and Eddy Van de Voorde. "Co-operation and Competition in Internal Container Transport." Maritime Policy and Management 28, no. 3 (2001): 293-305. |
| 15 |
Analysis of the maritime and port sector I and II Guest lectures: Hilde Meersman and Eddy Van de Voorde, Department of Transport and Regional Economics, University of Antwerp | Van de Voorde, Eddy. "What Future the Maritime Sector?" Research in Transportation Economics 13 (2005): 253-277. |
Meersman, Hilde. "Port Investments in an Uncertain Environment." Research in Transportation Economics 13, no. 1 (2005): 279-298. Meersman, Hilde, and Eddy Van de Voorde. "Competition and Ownership: Transferability of Experiences from Maritime Transport to Land-Based Modes." Chapter 15 in Competition and Ownership in Land Passenger Transport: Selected papers from the 9th International Conference. New York, NY: Elsevier Science, 2007. ISBN: 9780080450957. |
| Revenue forecasting and management | |||
| 16 | Transportation revenue forecasting: theory and models |
Bowman, J. L., Gopinath, D., and Moshe Ben-Akiva. "Estimating the Probability Distribution of a Travel Demand Forecast." Working Paper, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2002. Lam, T. C., and Kenneth Small. "The Value of Time and Reliability: Measurement from a Value Pricing Experiment." Transportation Research Part E 37, no. 3 (2001): 231-251. |
Ben-Akiva, M., D. Bolduc, and M. Bradley. "Estimation of Travel Choice Models with Randomly Distributed Value of Time." Transportation Research Record 1413 (1993): 88-97. Gopinath, D. A., and Moshe Ben-Akiva. "Estimation of Randomly Distributed Value of Time." Working Paper, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1997. Kriger, David, Suzette Shiu, and Sasha Naylor. "National Cooperative Highway Research Program Synthesis 364: Estimating Toll Road Demand and Revenue." Washington, DC: Transportation Research Board, 2006. ( |
| 17 |
Airline revenue management I: flight leg and network models Guest lecture: Peter Belobaba, MIT International Center for Air Transportation (MIT ICAT) |
Smith, Barry, et al. "Yield Management at American Airlines." Interfaces 22, no. 1 (1992): 8-31. Barnhart, Cynthia, et al. "Applications of Operations Research in the Air Transport Industry." Transportation Science 37, no. 4 (2003): 368-391. | |
| 18 |
Airline revenue management II: impact of fare simplification on revenue management (RM) models Guest lecture: Peter Belobaba, MIT ICAT | Boyd, E. Andrew, and Royce Kallesen. "The Science of Revenue Management when Passengers Purchase the Lowest Available Fare." Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management 3, no. 2 (2004): 171-177. | |
| Finance, regulation, and competition | |||
| 19 |
Project finance I Guest lecture: Jon Bottom, Steer Davies Gleave | Wachs, Martin. "Improving Efficiency and Equity in Transportation Finance." Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 2003. | |
| 20 |
Project finance II Guest lecture: Jon Bottom, Steer Davies Gleave | ||
| 21 |
Project finance III Regulation of transportation industries Guest lectures: Jon Bottom, Steer Davies Gleave | [S] Chapters 6.2-6.4 |
[M] Chapters 14-15 Rye, T., and Nigel H. M. Wilson. "The Urban Bus Situation in the UK: Recent Developments and a Case Study of Edinburgh." Paper presented at TRAIL Seminar on Competition, Public Transport and Service Innovations, March 2002, TU Delft, The Netherlands. |
| Project evaluation and programming | |||
| 22 |
Project evaluation and programming I Guest lecture: Lance Neumann, Cambridge Systematics, Inc. |
[S] Chapter 5.2-3 "Surface Transportation: Many Factors Affect Investment Decisions." Washington, DC: U.S. General Accounting Office, 2004. ( | |
| 23 |
Project evaluation and programming II Guest lecture: Lance Neumann, Cambridge Systematics, Inc. | [C] Chapters 10.1, 10.2.1-2, and 10.3.1-3 | |
| Developing countries | |||
| 24 |
Developing country urban mobility: the sustainable development imperative Guest lecture: Chris Zegras, MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning | "Cities on the Move: A World Bank Urban Transport Strategy Review." Washington, DC: World Bank Publications, 2002, pp. 5-77. ISBN: 9780821351482. ( PDF) | |
| 25 | Mobility demand in developing countries: some examples | Srinivasan, Karthik K., P. V. Lakshmi Bhargav, Gitakrishnan Ramadurai, Vidhya Muthuram, and Sumeeta Srinivasan. "Determinants of Changes in Mobility and Travel Patterns in Developing Countries: Case Study of Chennai, India." Transportation Research Record 2038 (2008): 42-52. | |
| Intelligent transportation systems, conclusion | |||
| 26 | Intelligent transportation systems and the impact of traveler information; emerging themes in transportation economics and policy |
[S] Chapter 7 Murphy, Sean. "Big Dig Pushes Bottlenecks Outward." Boston Globe, November 16, 2008. | |
Additional Background Readings in Microeconomics, Statistics, and Econometrics
Microeconomics
Nicholson, Walter, and Christopher Snyder. Microeconomic Theory: Basic Principles and Extensions. 10th ed. New York, NY: South-Western College Publishing, 2007. ISBN: 9780324421620. Read Parts I, II, and IV.
Probability and Statistics
Larsen, Richard, and Morris Marx. An Introduction to Mathematical Statistics and its Applications. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2005. ISBN: 9780131867932. Read Chapters 1-6 and 11.
DeGroot, Morris, and Mark Schervish. Probability and Statistics. 3rd ed. Boston, MA: Addison Wesley, 2006. ISBN: 9781428813809.
Econometrics
Pindyck, Robert, and Daniel Rubinfeld. Econometric Models and Economic Forecasts. 4th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1997. ISBN: 9780079132925.
Greene, William. Econometric Analysis. 5th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2002. ISBN: 9780130661890. Read Chapters 1, 2, and 6.