Second Best Decision Making of Railway Operators: How to Fix Fares, Frequency and Vehicle Size

Railway networks are characterized by variations in demand on different links. Optimal strategies therefore call for a differentiated treatment of fares, frequencies and vehicle sizes in various links. However, for various reasons, railway operators may apply uniform levels for these decision variables. This paper investigates the welfare losses implied by uniform setting of fares per km, frequencies and vehicle sizes. The paper demonstrates that the largest welfare loss results when frequencies are made uniform across links. Welfare losses due to making vehicle size and price per km uniform across links are smaller.

• Corporate Authors:

  World Conference on Transport Research Society

  Secretariat, 14 Avenue Berthelot
  69363 Lyon cedex 07,   France 
• Authors:
  • Rietveld, Piet
• Conference:
  • 10th World Conference on Transport Research
  • Location: Istanbul , Turkey
  • Date: 2004-7-4 to 2004-7-8
• Publication Date: 2004

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: CD-ROM
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 16p
• Monograph Title: 10th World Conference on Transport Research

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Externalities; Fares; Level of service; Mathematical models; Optimization; Passenger cars; Passenger trains; Pricing; Schedules and scheduling; Traffic congestion; Vehicle size
• Subject Areas: Economics; Finance; Railroads;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01088011
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Jan 30 2008 11:53AM