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The Economics of Information in Transport

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  • Piet Rietveld

    (VU University Amsterdam)

Abstract

Travelers often are incompletely informed about travel alternatives, which has important implications for various domains of travel behavior such as whether or not to make a trip, modal choice, the timing of a trip or route choice. During the last decade large efforts have been made to increase the availability of information to travelers by means of advanced traveler information systems (ATIS). This paper reviews economic aspects of information in transport markets. First, I will discuss information acquisition from an economics perspective by characterizing costs and benefits of information, leading to the formulation of optimal strategies to acquire information. This will be done in the context of search strategies leading to sequential information acquisition. I further discuss the broader consequences of information acquisition on the functioning of transport networks. In congested networks, when travelers change their behavior on the basis of information they obtain, this will have consequences not only for their own travel times, but also those of other travelers. This leads to interesting positive (and possibly negative) spillovers having important policy implications. The next step is the analysis of a traveler's choice whether to adopt advanced traveler information systems, implying the derivation of a demand function for information.

Suggested Citation

  • Piet Rietveld, 2010. "The Economics of Information in Transport," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 10-110/3, Tinbergen Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:20100110
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Richard H. M. Emmerink, 1998. "Information and Pricing in Road Transportation," Advances in Spatial Science, Springer, number 978-3-642-72143-4, Fall.
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    Cited by:

    1. Mandell, Svante & Proost, Stef, 2016. "Why truck distance taxes are contagious and drive fuel taxes to the bottom," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 1-17.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Information; ATIS; uncertainty;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R41 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - Transportation: Demand, Supply, and Congestion; Travel Time; Safety and Accidents; Transportation Noise
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • L86 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Information and Internet Services; Computer Software

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