Project publications may be ordered by contacting Dr. Ellen Thorson.

Project Summary

This project is concerned with the assessment of the generalized costs of passenger transportation in New Jersey and the application of these cost estimates to policy decisions.

The first objective will be to develop a generic cost model that will estimate the generalized economic costs of various modes of passenger transportation.

The second objective is to use the model to analyze policy decisions concerning different modes of passenger transportation. It is important to use the concept of social marginal cost which incorporates users and external costs in measuring the cost of transporting people in a particular area. It is also important to develop a ?dynamic? cost model that represents the relationship between the various cost categories for different modal mixes as they change over time.

The model will be capable of adjusting its parameters based on the possible changes in the modal mix. The ?dynamic? aspect of the model will allow policy makers to change the modal mixes and determine the prevailing costs for different combinations of modal mixes.

The model will be able to express the additional cost of transporting another unit of users and express the effects of the modal mix change by automatically recalibrating its parameters to take into account changes in demand and behavior.