[All] NEW: CEPR 2013 Passenger Railways Reduce Road Traffic Externalities

[Robert Milligan]

Thank you Carole,

This is a very useful study because of the many passenger rail  
insights (cf. roads) it brings. Perhaps you might consider sending a  
copy to Thomas Schmidt to help advance his knowledge -- and even TRITAG.

Robert M.


On 2-Mar-13, at 7:42 PM, Carole Clinch wrote:

> Lalive R, Luechinger S, Armin S. Does Supporting Passenger Railways  
> Reduce Road Traffic Externalities? Centre for Economic Policy  
> Research; Discussion Paper, Series No. 9335. Attached in .pdf and  
> available online at: www.cepr.org/pubs/dps/DP9335.asp
> p 4
> Our analysis supports the hypothesis that improvements in the  
> quality of local passenger transportation cause improvements in the  
> outcome variables of interest.
>
> First, we find a substantial negative effect of improved passenger  
> transportation on road accidents. Because road accidents are  
> exclusively the result of road transportation, this finding suggests  
> that increasing the frequency of regional passenger railway services  
> reduces road traffic (C1).
> Second, we observe negative and significant effects of an increase  
> in the frequency of service on NO and NO2; the effects on CO are  
> also negative, but weaker and imprecisely estimated.
> Third, we test the validity of the instrument by placebo regressions  
> on SO2 pollution; SO2 is mainly emitted from power stations. We find  
> that improving the railway service frequency has no effects on the  
> concentration of SO2.
> Similarly, we do not find any effect of railway services on O3.  
> Again, this is not surprising. Even though road traffic is an  
> important source of O3 and CO, NO and NO2 are precursors of O3, the  
> complex chemistry of ozone formation often leads to high O3  
> concentrations far away from the emission sources.
> Fifth, we find some evidence that the increase in the frequency of  
> rail services reduced infant mortality rates.
>
> Summing up, our analysis supports the idea that improvements in the  
> quality of railway services can substantially reduce road traffic  
> externalities.
>
> P 27-8
> This paper exploits regional variation in the supply of railway  
> services to identify the effects of support for passenger railways  
> on road traffic externalities.
>
>
> The substitution from cars to railways most likely has considerable  
> effects on other externalities. For instance, the substitution  
> should lead to less emissions of carbon dioxide, less noise and  
> lower congestion externalities.
>
> Regional passenger railway service is heavily subsidized in Germany.  
> Is this a worthwhile cost to taxpayers? We provide estimates of the  
> monetary benefits of the 28% expansion in the capacity of regional  
> railway services between 1994 and 2004. Our estimates indicate that  
> these monetary benefits are in the same order of magnitude as the  
> costs. While we do not have any precise figures on the additional  
> subsidies required to finance this growth, it appears unlikely that  
> these additional funds are much higher than the corresponding  
> monetary benefits.<Lalive_2013_RailwaysReduceRoadTraffic.pdf>
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