IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bsl/wpaper/2025-05.html

Transport Pricing to Promote E-biking and Reduce Externalities: Insights from a GPS-Tracked Experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Roth, Jakob
  • Schwab, Laura
  • Hintermann, Beat
  • Götschi, Thomas
  • Meister, Adrian
  • Meyer de Freitas, Lucas
  • Axhausen, Kay W.

Abstract

This study presents results from a randomized controlled trial involving 1,085 participants in Switzerland that have access to an E-bike, a car, and public transport. The participants’ transport choices are monitored by means of a GPS-based tracking app. The treatment consists in a monetary incentive that approximates the main external costs and benefits associated with transport in the spirit of a Pigovian tax. This tax reduces transport-related external costs by 6.9 %, which corresponds to 78 Swiss francs per person and year (currently equivalent to 94 US dollars). The main underlying mechanism is a mode shift away from driving towards E-biking, public transport and walking. The results are primarily driven by individuals who own an S-pedelec with support up to 45 km/h, rather than users of the more common E-bikes that provide support up to 25 km/h. The pricing also induces a travel shift towards less congested time windows

Suggested Citation

  • Roth, Jakob & Schwab, Laura & Hintermann, Beat & Götschi, Thomas & Meister, Adrian & Meyer de Freitas, Lucas & Axhausen, Kay W., 2025. "Transport Pricing to Promote E-biking and Reduce Externalities: Insights from a GPS-Tracked Experiment," Working papers 2025/05, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    • Handle: RePEc:bsl:wpaper:2025/05
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://edoc.unibas.ch/bitstreams/dd60af6e-bd76-48fc-98fe-33625ce28c79/download
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter Nilsson & Matthew Tarduno & Sebastian Tebbe & J. Peter Nilsson, 2024. "Road Pricing with Green Vehicle Exemptions: Theory and Evidence," CESifo Working Paper Series 11038, CESifo.
    2. John A. List, 2020. "Non est Disputandum de Generalizability? A Glimpse into The External Validity Trial," NBER Working Papers 27535, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Clément de Chaisemartin & Xavier D’Haultfœuille, 2023. "Two-way fixed effects and differences-in-differences with heterogeneous treatment effects: a survey," The Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 26(3), pages 1-30.
    4. Jonathan Leape, 2006. "The London Congestion Charge," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(4), pages 157-176, Fall.
    5. Richard H. Thaler & Eric J. Johnson, 1990. "Gambling with the House Money and Trying to Break Even: The Effects of Prior Outcomes on Risky Choice," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(6), pages 643-660, June.
    6. Beat Hintermann & Beaumont Schoemann & Joseph Molloy & Thomas Götschi & Alberto Castro & Christopher Tchervenkov & Uros Tomic & Kay W. Axhausen, 2025. "Pigovian Transport Pricing in Practice," CESifo Working Paper Series 11871, CESifo.
    7. Alberto Castro & Sonja Kahlmeier & Thomas Gotschi, 2018. "Exposure-Adjusted Road Fatality Rates for Cycling and Walking in European Countries," International Transport Forum Discussion Papers 2018/05, OECD Publishing.
    8. Santos, Georgina, 2017. "Road fuel taxes in Europe: Do they internalize road transport externalities?," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 120-134.
    9. Gibson, Matthew & Carnovale, Maria, 2015. "The effects of road pricing on driver behavior and air pollution," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 62-73.
    10. Adam Rosenfield & John P. Attanucci & Jinhua Zhao, 2020. "A randomized controlled trial in travel demand management," Transportation, Springer, vol. 47(4), pages 1907-1932, August.
    11. Sun, Liyang & Abraham, Sarah, 2021. "Estimating dynamic treatment effects in event studies with heterogeneous treatment effects," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 175-199.
    12. Agarwal, Sumit & Koo, Kang Mo, 2016. "Impact of electronic road pricing (ERP) changes on transport modal choice," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 1-11.
    13. Jun Yang & Avralt-Od Purevjav & Shanjun Li, 2020. "The Marginal Cost of Traffic Congestion and Road Pricing: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Beijing," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 12(1), pages 418-453, February.
    14. Gabriel Kreindler, 2024. "Peak‐Hour Road Congestion Pricing: Experimental Evidence and Equilibrium Implications," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 92(4), pages 1233-1268, July.
    15. Emilia Simeonova & Janet Currie & Peter Nilsson & Reed Walker, 2021. "Congestion Pricing, Air Pollution, and Children’s Health," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 56(4), pages 971-996.
    16. Plazier, Paul A. & Weitkamp, Gerd & van den Berg, Agnes E., 2017. "“Cycling was never so easy!” An analysis of e-bike commuters' motives, travel behaviour and experiences using GPS-tracking and interviews," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 25-34.
    17. Callaway, Brantly & Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C., 2021. "Difference-in-Differences with multiple time periods," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 200-230.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Andrea Baranzini & Stefano Carattini & Linda Tesauro, 2021. "Designing Effective and Acceptable Road Pricing Schemes: Evidence from the Geneva Congestion Charge," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 79(3), pages 417-482, July.
    2. Arne Henningsen & Guy Low & David Wuepper & Tobias Dalhaus & Hugo Storm & Dagim Belay & Stefan Hirsch, 2024. "Estimating Causal Effects with Observational Data: Guidelines for Agricultural and Applied Economists," IFRO Working Paper 2024/03, University of Copenhagen, Department of Food and Resource Economics.
    3. Sanna Bergvall & Nuria Rodriguez-Planas, 2024. "Motherhood and domestic violence: A longitudinal study using population - wide administrative data," Working Papers 2024/09, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    4. Drange, Nina & Sandsør, Astrid Marie Jorde, 2024. "The effects of a free universal after-school program on child academic outcomes," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    5. Chen, Jidong & Shi, Xinzheng & Zhang, Ming-ang & Zhang, Sihan, 2024. "Centralization of environmental administration and air pollution: Evidence from China," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    6. Steinbach, Sandro, 2023. "The Corporatization of Veterinary Medicine: An Empirical Analysis of Its Impact on Independent Practices," 2023 Annual Meeting, July 23-25, Washington D.C. 335481, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    7. Bhorat, Haroon & Köhler, Timothy, 2025. "The labour market effects of cash transfers to the unemployed: Evidence from South Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    8. Rotunno, Lorenzo & Roy, Sanchari & Sakakibara, Anri & Vezina, Pierre-Louis, 2023. "Trade Policy and Jobs in Vietnam: The Unintended Consequences of Trump’s Trade War," SocArXiv 9rdne, Center for Open Science.
    9. Richa Jain & Amlendu Dubey, 2025. "Dynamic treatment effect of capital controls on macroeconomic and financial stability in emerging market economies," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 68(3), pages 963-999, March.
    10. Balmford, Ben & Collins, Joseph & Day, Brett & Lindsay, Luke & Peacock, James, 2023. "Pricing rules for PES auctions: Evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    11. Ciani, Andrea & Stiebale, Joel, 2024. "Export Performance Under Domestic Anti-Dumping Protection," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    12. Jeffrey M Wooldridge, 2023. "Simple approaches to nonlinear difference-in-differences with panel data," The Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 26(3), pages 31-66.
    13. Germà Bel & Joël Bühler, 2025. "The effect of Door-to-Door on separate collection of plastic packaging: evidence from Catalonia," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 27(3), pages 377-403, July.
    14. Nieto, Adrián, 2022. "Can subsidies to permanent employment change fertility decisions?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    15. Dmitry Arkhangelsky & Guido Imbens, 2023. "Causal Models for Longitudinal and Panel Data: A Survey," Papers 2311.15458, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2024.
    16. Fayssal Ayad & Ahlam Delmadji, 2025. "Fifty shades of sustainable development: a global study," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 27(7), pages 16739-16771, July.
    17. Roth, Jonathan & Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C. & Bilinski, Alyssa & Poe, John, 2023. "What’s trending in difference-in-differences? A synthesis of the recent econometrics literature," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 235(2), pages 2218-2244.
    18. repec:ags:aaea22:335779 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Chareyron, Sylvain & Goffette-Nagot, Florence & Letrouit, Lucie, 2022. "Externalities from urban renewal: Evidence from a French program," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    20. Bishwanath Goldar & Prateek Kukreja & Havishaye Puri, 2025. "Labour Reforms and Growth in Manufacturing Employment in India," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 68(1), pages 45-73, March.
    21. Chen, Shuai & Ge, Erqi, 2024. "The Anti-Corruption Campaign and the Inter-Generational Transmission of Working in Bureaucracy: Evidence from China," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1159 [rev.], Global Labor Organization (GLO).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy
    • R41 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - Transportation: Demand, Supply, and Congestion; Travel Time; Safety and Accidents; Transportation Noise
    • R48 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - Government Pricing and Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bsl:wpaper:2025/05. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: WWZ (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wwzbsch.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.