Benchmarking Road Sector Infrastructure for Policy Guidance. Poland as a Case Study (2020)

 ©Antti Talvitie, Magda Nieweglowska, Radek Czapski 2020

Benchmarking Road Sector Infrastructure for Policy Guidance

Poland as a Case Study

Antti Talvitie,
Professor (em) Aalto University, PO Box 14100, FI-00076 AALTO, Finland
(aptalvitie(at)gmail.com)

Magda Nieweglowska
Transport Analysis Specialist, Solidarity Transport Hub;
Transport & ICT Consultant, World Bank 

Radek Czapski
Program Manager - World Bank, Global Road Safety Facility;
Senior Transport Specialist, World Bank 

ABSTRACT

The paper demonstrates a use of comprehensive road sector benchmarking to examine important issues in road management and policymaking. Poland as the focus, with Finland, Germany, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Spain, and Sweden as the benchmark countries, of whom only three -- Finland, Germany, Romania -- were fully usable.  The benchmarking data were developed for 4 years over 2010-2014; 2013 data are used as representative. All data were checked for accuracy and consistency. 

Rail factor and realism of the unconscious (2020)

©Antti Talvitie, 2020

FULL PAPER, PDF, 560 KB, 11 pages

Rail Factor and Realism of the Unconscious

Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives, 6 (2020) 100144

Antti Talvitie (aptalvitie(at)gmail.com)
Aalto University, Espoo, Finland

ABSTRACT

The paper reviews the spoken but unknown behavioral ‘rail factor’ that may bias travel forecasts toward rail, or favor investments in urban rail, foster economic development, or add to satisfaction of travel. The rail factor hypothesis is examined from cognitive and unconscious points of view.  The former is based on the mode specific constants in mode choice models, types of travel time data, values of travel time reductions, and citizen preferences in two urban transport corridors.  The unconscious view is based on Freud’s conception of the unconscious and his and others’ perceptions about rail travel and ‘knowledge illusion’. It is pointed out that the cognitive factors already broach the unconscious and its unobservable dynamics. The realism of the unconscious is related to the cognitive findings via a literature review of the most typical genres on rail factor research. 

Tunnin junat ja ratainvestoinnit estävät talouden kasvua (2019)

©Antti Talvitie, 2019

Lehdistössä on keskustelua infrastruktuuri-investoinneista, Tunnin juna Turkuun, Tampereelle ja ratainvestointeja muualle. Perusteina on ilmaston muutos, urbanisaatio ja aluerakenteen keskittyminen kasvukeskuksiin, ja työmarkkinoiden erikoistuminen ja tuottavuuden kasvu. On myös esitetty, että rautatiet ovat skaalaetuinen monopoli ja ”ansaitsee” subvention. Kaikki perustelut ovat ilman näyttöä.

Ratainvestointien vaikutus ilmaston muutokseen, urbanisaatioon ja aluerakenteeseen on parhaassa tapauksessa epävarmaa. Ne pikemminkin hajaannuttavat yhdyskuntarakennetta ja pidentävät matkoja, kuten Oikorata osoitti. Varmaa on vain Suomen rataliikenteen tappiollisuus, päinvastoin kuin VR väittää. Tappion lasku veronmaksajille on €400M vuodessa. Tämän voi varmistaa Väyläviraston ja VRn tilinpäätöksistä. Tunnin junat lisäisivät tappiota. Rantarataa sentään voidaan parantaa halvalla.

Jules Dupuit and benefit-cost Analysis: Making past to be the present (2018)

©Antti Talvitie, 2018
Jules Dupuit / Paris street: Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

Jules Dupuit and Benefit-Cost Analysis: Making Past to be the Present

Transport Policy, 2018, vol. 70, issue C, pp. 14-21

Antti Talvitie (aptalvitie(at)gmail.com)

ABSTRACT

The paper reviews the enduring contributions of Jules Dupuit (1804-1866), Chief Engineer for the City of Paris and later Inspector-general of the Corps des Pont et Chaussees, on benefit-cost analysis, and his development of aggregate demand function for the identification of benefit, and consumer and producer surpluses as measures of utility.

Economic Benefit Cost Analysis, Social Benefit Cost Analysis and of the Emotional Appeal of Railway Projects in Planning (2018)

©Antti Talvitie, 2018

Jules Dupuit / Paris street: Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

Economic Benefit Cost Analysis, Social Benefit Cost Analysis and of the Emotional Appeal of Railway Projects in Planning

Presentation in AALTO University’s Summer School on Transportation (2021)

Antti Talvitie (aptalvitie(at)gmail.com)

ABSTRACT

This presentation has three perspectives anchored on the author’s professions.  The first perspective is engineering-economic and discusses Economic Benefit Cost Analysis (EBCA) developed by Jules Dupuit in the mid-1800s, which informs on the economic value and outcome of a transport project. The second perspective social-economic, Social Benefit Cost Analysis (SBCA), which informs on socioeconomic value and outcomes of transport projects. The third perspective is psychoanalytic, which informs of the motivations of travel behavior and project decisions.  All are implanted in the author’s professional education, training, and experience as a civil engineer and as a psychoanalyst.

The paper uses three references as the inspirational basis of the paper.  The first two are based on revealed preferences: the author’s retrospective paper on Jules Dupuit’s invention of the (economic) benefit cost analysis (EBCA), and Reginald Arkell’s paper on the social benefits and social costs (SBCA) of the Chicago expressway system. The emotional appeal of the rail mode choice and project decisions is based on stated preferences. The key reference is the author’s “Rail Factor and Realism of the Unconscious”. Supporting references are also cited, some included in the references of the above papers without explicit citation.

Observed Differences in Corruption between Asia and Africa: The Industrial Organization of Corruption and Its Cure (2016)

 

©Antti Talvitie, 2016

FULL PAPER, PDF, 422 KB, 20 pages

Observed Differences in Corruption between Asia and Africa: The Industrial Organization of Corruption and Its Cure

Transportation Research Procedia, Volume 25, Part 6, pp. 4476-4495
(Eds. F. Ulengin et al, ISBN 978-1-5108-4232-8) (2016).

Antti Talvitie (aptalvitie@gmail.com)

ABSTRACT

The paper presents a nonconforming view about corruption and an approach to its ‘cure’. It seeks to explain the situation that despite pervasive corruption and weak institutions, emerging economies in Asia attracted foreign investment and achieved remarkable economic growth and reduction in poverty. Fragile countries in Africa have done less well.

Freud, the Big Bang, and the Origin of Life (2016)

©Antti Talvitie, 2016 (revised as noted)
Freud: Wikimedia Commons / Max Halberstad / Public domain

FULL PAPER, PDF, 368 KB, 20 pages

ABSTRACT
Freud, the Big Bang, and the Origin of Life

Antti Talvitie (aptalvitie@gmail.com) 

In 1924, Freud thought that the “the theory of the instincts is the most important but…the least complete portion of psycho-analysis” (Freud 1905, p 168, fn in 1924).  The paper addresses this matter and starts where Freud broke off his reflections about the origin of life in Beyond the Pleasure Principle: “…that living substance at the time of its coming to life was torn into small particles, which have ever since endeavoured to reunite through the sexual instincts.” In this paper, these words are placed in the context of the Big Bang beginning of the Universe, which is discussed and then related to concepts and processes in Freud’s theory.  Other theories about the origin of life are discussed briefly.  A hypothesis is then made that Freud’s constructs of life and death instincts are real, a viable fifth force, and absent from the present standard model of physics. They originated with the Big Bang. A companion hypothesis is that, after a supernova, the fifth force’s means of transmission (particles, if particles are used to transmit it) produced organic elements which when combined with an energy source, formed living eukaryotic cells by a process “of which we have no conception” (Freud’s words).  Simply, it is hypothesized that the fifth force ignited the formation of life and consciousness and their continued evolution. There was (cosmological) physics before biology. These hypotheses are discussed, and proposals are made to test them.

Reasoning-Building Process for Transportation Project Evaluation (2015)

  

© Kronprasert, N. and Talvitie, A.P. (2015)

FULL PAPER, Pdf, 622 KB, 23 pages.

Paper Submitted for Publication in the Transportation Research Record

Journal of Transportation Research Board

Paper 14-1784

Reasoning-Building Process for Transportation Project Evaluation and Decision-Making: Use of Reasoning Map and Evidence Theory

TRB Record 2453, pp. 11-21 (2015). Washington DC, (with Kronprasert).

Nopadon Kronprasert, Ph.D. (Corresponding Author)

Research Associate

National Research Council

Federal Highway Administration

6300 Georgetown Pike, McLean, VA 22101, USA

Antti P. Talvitie, Ph.D., Professor (em)

Aalto University, Finland

Rakentajanaukio 4, Pl 2100, Espoo, Finland

Email: (aptalvitie(at)gmail.com)

ABSTRACT

Policy-makers of today’s transportation investment projects engage in dialogues and debates in which the reasonableness and clarity are of great value. In the traditional transportation systems planning practices, different stakeholders reason and provide evidence in support of their preferences, but these opinions are often conflicting and rarely consistent. This paper presents a goal-oriented decision-making method for finding a transportation alternative that best achieves the project’s goals and also indicating the level of satisfaction of different stakeholders. The proposed method (i) applies a reasoning map to structure how experts and citizens perceive the alternatives for achieving the project’s goals, and (ii) provides belief measures in evidence theory to what extent the alternatives achieve the goals of different stakeholders.

Use of Reasoning Maps in Evaluation of Transport Alternatives (2015)

© Kronprasert, N. and Talvitie, A.P. (2014)

Use of Reasoning Maps in Evaluation of Transport Alternatives

Springer Science+Business Media,New York, 2014

Nopadon Kronprasert

Antti Talvitie (aptalvitie(at)gmail.com)

ABSTRACT

Selection of a transport alternative is usually a messy process. The traditional approaches consider the relationships as either deterministic or probabilistic, neither of which incorporates the degree of ignorance (i.e., ‘‘I don’t know’’ opinion). Further, different stakeholders seek to justify their preferences with reasoning that suits their agenda. This paper proposes and demonstrates a method that evaluates the validity of the reasoning process and derives the degrees of belief that stated goals are achieved. The paper demonstrates a ‘reasoning map’ method for evaluating transport alternatives, where the analysts accept and employ the notion of ‘‘I don’t know’’ about an issue. The reasoning map depicts the relational chains from the attributes of an action to the stated goals, and recognizes the notion of ‘‘I don’t know’’. This paper uses the theory of evidence to account for ignorance; it calculates the propagation of uncertainties along the reasoning chains. The context chosen for this demonstration is the selection of a public transit mode, personal rapid transit, over Bus, in a commercial complex in Washington DC. The paper has a limited objective and is not  comprehensive evaluation of alternatives. It merely explains how to compute a numerical value for the strength of reasoning, how to deal with analyst’s notion of ‘‘I don’t know,’’ how to interpret the overall reliability of the reasoning process, how to measure the goal achievement of an alternative, and how to find the critical paths linking the planning options to goals. For use in planning practice, consultation of experts and affected citizens and aggregation of their views is needed to develop the reasoning maps.

The Problem of Trust in Planning (2012)

©Antti Talvitie, 2012
Freud: Wikimedia Commons / Max Halberstad / Public domain

Problem of Trust in Planning

Planning Theory, 2012. Vol 11 (3): 257-278.

Antti Talvitie (aptalvitie(at)gmail.com)

ABSTRACT

The paper reviews recent literature on trust in urban and regional planning from engineering planning, sociological, economic, and psychoanalytic perspectives using the author’s training and experiences as a backdrop. It discusses the various approaches of defining trust in the planning context and discusses four categories of trust proposed by Swain and Tait (2007).

Theoryless Planning (2009)

 

©Antti Talvitie, 2009

FULL PAPER, PDF, 633 KB, 25 pages

Theoryless Planning

Planning Theory, Vol 8(2):166-190, 2009.

Antti Talvitie (aptalvitie(at)gmail.com)
Helsinki University of Technology, Finland

ABSTRACT

The paper begins unconventionally and experientially -- with memories that became the wellspring for the author’s doubts about the scientific basis of (transport) planning.  These memories form an essential substrate for the formal presentation which offers a scientific approach to (transport) planning that is experiential rather than positivist. The transition from the informal to the formal presentation is via a short history of planning.  The article proposes a planning process and technique, which is ‘beyond postmodernism’.  This theoryless planning model takes the almost incomprehensible web of associations in human unconscious as its starting point, and patterns it as modern psychoanalytic process and technique for individuals and groups.  A glossary of key terms is included.

Model, Process, Technique, and the Good Thing (2008)

©Antti Talvitie, 2008

FULL PAPER, Pdf, 419 KB, 25 pages.

Model, Process, Technique, and the Good Thing

Transportation, 35: 375-393, 2008

Antti Talvitie (aptalvitie(at)gmail.com)

Helsinki University of Technology (TKK)

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and

Centre for Urban and Regional Studies

ABSTRACT

 The paper unpacks the planning process into its component parts: model, process, technique, and goals –the “good thing”. The paper advances the concept that planning, policy-making, and organizational restructuring can be analyzed under the same framework. Each of the four components is described and reductionist examples are presented to clarify the intention and to illustrate the technique that the transport analyst teams employ in their work. The examples cover both successes and failures. They point toward the enormous scientific task ahead for planning to become meaningful and relevant to the problems of today. Finally, in the frame of the willingness to pay, the paper puts forward a case for an institutional framework for a financially autonomous road administration. Similarly organized, administered, and managed entities are relevant also for other transport modes.

 

Experiential Incrementalism- On the Theory and Technique to Implement Transport Plans and Policies (2006)

©Antti Talvitie, 2006

FULL PAPER, Pdf, 358 KB, 30 pages.

Experiential Incrementalism- On the Theory and Technique to Implement Transport Plans and Policies

Transportation 33: 83 -110, 2006.

Antti Talvitie (aptalvitie(at)gmail.com)

Consultant

Springfield, Virginia and Helsinki, Finland

ABSTRACT

Experiential Incrementalism: A Theory and Technique to Implement Transport Plans and Policies.

The paper describes an approach to the vexing problem of transport planning and policy. It deals jointly with three questions, which in today’s practice are addressed separately: How are hypotheses about transport problems and alternatives to their solution developed? How can a good plan or policy be identified? What is the process of implementing a transport plan or policy? In doing this the paper has the ambitious objective of proposing a new model and process for transport planning and policy. It is applicable in developed and developing countries and is not restricted to the transport sector.

Some Managerial and Technical Issues in Transport Sector Development Projects (2006)

 

©Tengiz Gogelia & Antti Talvitie 2006

Some Managerial and Technical Issues in Transport Sector Development Projects

Transportation, 2011: Vol. 38, 5, Pp 779-798.

Dr. Tengiz Gogelia, Consultant for International Aid Projects,
Tbilisi, Georgia, Corresponding author.

Prof. Antti Talvitie, Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland
(aptalvitie(at)gmail.com)

ABSTRACT

In development projects there is only one problem, but it is huge: everything is connected to everything else.  The authors separated from the whole important issues the following:

Project Management and Coordination. The Recipient Country’s Aid Coordination Unit (ACU) and Project Implementation Unit (PIU) staffed with competent local experts to hold reform process memory are necessary.  This issue is considered in the context of “Ownership” and “Government Leadership” as it is recognized in donor aid forums in the last decade.

New Approaches to Ownership, Administration and Management of Low Volume Roads (2004)

© Esko Sirvio and Antti Talvitie (2004)

FULL PAPER, Pdf, 266 KB, 20 pages.

New Approaches to Ownership, Administration and Management of Low Volume Roads

Paper in WCTRS Conference, Istanbul, 2004. (with Esko Sirvio)

Esko Sirvio

President of Sirway Consulting Ltd.

Antti Talvitie
Consultant to the World Bank

aptalvitie(at)gmail.com

ABSTRACT

Low volume roads normally comprise about 80 percent of the total road network, but serve but 20% of the traffic. This has caused a difficult problem in many countries for owning, administering and managing this large road network whose importance is unquestioned but whose maintenance is neglected. This paper explores the various options for approaching these issues from the perspective that the vision is reached gradually through a process of incremental steps. It is taken for granted that the private sector carries out the supplier functions, the road works whether maintenance, rehabilitation, or construction.

Performance Indicators for the Road Sector (1999)

 ©Antti Talvitie, 1999

FULL PAPER, Pdf, 453 KB, 29 pages.

Performance Indicators for the Road Sector

Transportation 26; 5-30, 1999

Antti Talvitie, Senior Evaluation Officer (aptalvitie(at)gmail.com)

The World Bank, 1818 H Street, N.W. Washington D.C. 20433, U.S.A.

ABSTRACT

Seeing the trend for public accountability of road administrations and noting the many reform efforts undertaken in transport sectors around the world, the OECD established a Scientific Expert Group on Performance Indicators for the Road Sector in 1996 to provide its member countries a framework for assessing road administrations’ performance.1 The results of the Expert Group's work is presented in this paper.

Fifteen indispensable, forty primary, and thirty-five secondary indicators are proposed to portray the road sector from different perspectives. They are designed to be changed in response to human needs and technological development and supplemented by country specific indicators. In keeping with this approach and in support of one of the maxims of the Expert Group that “useful performance indicators are those which are used”, an application in the form of a Field Test is now in progress by an OECD task force.

Things planners believe in, and things they deny (1997)

©Antti Talvitie, 1997

FULL PAPER, PDF, 235 KB, 27 pages

Things planners believe in, and things they deny

Transportation, No. 24. Vol 1. pp. 1-31. 1997

Antti Talvitie (aptalvitie(at)gmail.com)

World Bank

ABSTRACT

The paper examines the economic theory of consumer behavior from the Modern Psychoanalytic point of view with a metaphor of (transport) planning as a backdrop. It is claimed that the utility maximization principle of economic theory, no matter how broadly interpreted, does not envelop the motivation of human behavior and that the economic explanation of the aims of human behavior, which disregards the "dark side" of man, will result in narrowly conceived plans and policies.

The application of economic theory, and other social sciences, to public policy has led to disjointedness of data collection, method of analysis, and planning and implementation. This, combined with a tautological behavioral theory, has made the current planning and public policy procedures self-verifying, and issues an invitation for a new theoretical approach which is comprehensive, does not ignore complexity and the large 'error term', and appreciates the unity of data collection, method of investigation, and process of implementation.

International Experiences in Restructuring the Road Sector (1996)

©Antti Talvitie, 1996

FULL PAPER, Pdf, 633 KB, 25 pages.

International Experiences in Restructuring the Road Sector

Transportation Research Record No. 1558, pp. 99-108, 1996.

Antti Talvitie (aptalvitie(at)gmail.com)

ABSTRACT

The first part of the paper proposes an evolutionary continuum on which a modern and mature Road Administration develops. The paper outlines the five phases that appear necessary in this evolution. These are: (i) the establishment of traditional construction and maintenance organization; (ii) separation of client and producer functions; (iii) separation of client and producer organizations; (iv) corporatization or privatization of the producer organization; and (v) corporatization of the (client) road administration. The second part of the paper addresses the change management process: the framework process and its constituent cores. The framework process is the flow of activities in change management when moving from one organizational phase to another. The core activities are those which the road administration must address in the change process. Both of these are discussed in detail. It is asserted that a quick reorganization of road administrations is neither possible nor desirable. The exact path to be taken depends critically on the initial conditions from which the road administration embarks upon its development path.

Public Participation in the Helsinki Crosstown Artery Project (1996)

 

©Antti Talvitie, Tuija Pearson 1996

FULL PAPER, Pdf, 1172 KB, 15 pages. 

Public Participation in the Helsinki Crosstown Artery Project

Journal of Advanced Transportation, Vol. 31, No. 2, pp. 185-199

Antti Talvitie, (aptalvitie(at)gmail.com)

Tuija Pearson

ABSTRACT

The paper reports on citizen participation in the planning of Helsinki Crosstown Artery in the early 1990s. The project had difficult beginnings: there was disagreement on benefits and costs, a broad-based mistrust, and an externally prepared work program which sought to resolve these emotional disagreements using technical information. The citizen participation program consisted of Open Houses preceded by a newsletter, newspaper advertisements, a 1-800 Number hotline, and a responsiveness summary. Additional techniques were used as necessary. The design of the citizen participation program was sound and inexpensive, provided for continuous evaluation, and drove the planning work. Substantial informed consent was created in the project. The main conclusion from the present case study is this: in planning and in public participation emotional issues dominate and can rarely be solved by "rational" studies. The citizen participation technique evolved during the study is transferable and has broad planning implications.

Management System for Transport Infrastructure (1995)

 

©Antti Talvitie, 1995

FULL PAPER, Pdf, 345 KB, 20 pages.

Management System for Transport Infrastructure

Transportation Research Record, No. 1499,pp. 37-49, 1995.

Antti Talvitie (aptalvitie(at)gmail.com)

The World Bank

Washington D.C., USA

ABSTRACT

Unlike for road rehabilitation or maintenance, no network level management models have been developed for new investments to transportation facilities to improve access, to increase capacity or to achieve other socially desirable goals. Yet, highway investment takes 40-80 percent of the road budget, and its share on other modes is not negligible. Two or three road network design models aimed at this objective have, however, been proposed. In this paper a model is described having the dual objective of network design and comprehensive, multimodal transport investment.

Organization, Management and Financing in a Road Agency (1994)

©Antti Talvitie and Jukka Hirvela, 1994

FULL PAPER, Pdf, 172 KB, 15 pages.

Organization, Management and Financing in a Road Agency

Transportation Research Record, No. 1450, pp.72-79, 1994, Washington DC (with J. Hirvela).

Antti Talvitie (aptalvitie(at)gmail.com)

The World Bank

1818 H Street, Washington D.C. 20433, USA

(formerly Director in the Finnish National Road Administration)

and
Jukka Hirvelä, Director

Ministry of Finance, Finland

(Currently Director in the Finnish National Road Administration)

ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on issues and concepts involved in the road administration organization, management, and financing. Road Administration organization is analyzed using a cost function which supported a decentralized "fractal organization" for a road agency. Road management systems are then discussed. It is argued that for the management systems to be useful must be compatible with the agency organization. Finally, the Road Fund and road user charges are discussed and their importance to road administration management elaborated.

Analysis of Productivity in Highway Construction (1991)

©Antti Talvitie and Catharina Sikow, 1991

FULL PAPER, Pdf, 1741 KB, 16 pages. 

Analysis of Productivity in Highway Construction

Transportation Research A, 1992 (with Catharina Sikow)

A.P. Talvitie (aptalvitie(at)gmail.com)

and Catharina Sikow

Viatek Ltd, Espoo Finland

(Received 15 September 1991)

ABSTRACT

Productivity in a state administration has become an important topic in recent years. In the paper, productivity growth (decline) in highway construction over time and comparisons between different regions of a highway agency are made. The cost function is used to analyze the road construction process. The explanatory variables are the factor prices, the output levels and several factors over which the management of the highway agency has control. The hypotheses concerning economies of scale, both at the project level and at the region level, indicate increasing returns to scale. The implications of this and other results of the cost function hypotheses testing to road construction policy and productivity are discussed. Manipulation of the cost function makes it possible to compare productivity growth (decline) and average cost differences between regions or between points of time. In addition, the sources of productivity growth and unit cost difference can be traced to a pure regional effect, an input price effect, an output scale effect, a management effect, technical change and an unexplained component. In spite of the high statistical accuracy of the estimated cost function, this unexplained component, together with the output scale component, appeared to assume a major significance to productivity and average cost. The study shows the fundamental importance of the definition of output in productivity and cost efficiency studies if there are (dis)economies of scale. It is shown, in particular, that if economies of scale are present and they are not taken advantage of in the production, a "technological gap" develops. This means that the agency may appear to be performing in a cost-effective manner when it could, in fact, be performing much better. The method is applied and demonstrated using data from the Finnish Highway Administration. The implications of the results to improving the efficiency and organization of the agency are discussed.

Econometric Analysis of Highway Construction Technology (1989)

 

©Antti Talvitie, Catharina Sikow, 1989

FULL PAPER, Pdf, 1291 KB, 25 pages. 

Econometric Analysis of Highway Construction Technology

Selected Proceedings of the Fifth World Conference on Transport Research,
Volume II, pp 69-84, WCTR 1989 (with Catharina Sikow). 
 
A.P. Talvitie (aptalvitie(at)gmail.com)
and Catharina Sikow

ABSTRACT

Finland Highway and Waterways Administration (TVH) data from 1978 to 1987, supplemented over 100 recently completed highway project data, with a duration of 1-4 years. The paper is a comprehensive analysis of highway construction technology with implications for road administration organization and management. Three groups of variables were used: four output classes (Y,); four input factor prices (P); and three management variables (M). Time variable gives a general idea of technological change. The flexible translog cost function was used to estimate the highway construction cost function:

Total costs = f(P, Y, M,T, D) 

According to tests, input prices were found separable from both outputs and management variables, but the latter two not separable from each other. There are economies of scale but no economies of scope. TVH is a multi-product firm, with non-Leontief form and non-Cobb-Douglas type production function construction technology.

Analysis of Technology Bus Firms (1989)

 

©Antti Talvitie and Tom Backstrom, 1989

FULL PAPER, Pdf, 718 KB, 13 pages. 

Analysis of Technology Bus Firms

Finnish Economic Papers - Volume 2-Number 2-Autumn 1989

Antti Talvitie

Finland Highway and Waterway Administration, SF-00521 Helsinki
and
Tom Backstrom

Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration, SF-00100 Helsinki

ABSTRACT

The study examines the structure of technology of (Finnish) bus companies. Economies of scale and scope, effect of service type and peaking on the average costs, substitution of factors of production, and technical change are analyzed. The majority of the Finnish bus companies operate at too low a level of production to be cost efficient. With »average» product mix the optimum level of output is 6.5 million bus kilometers per year on the Finnish market. The companies can obtain a cost advantage by having a versatile product-mix. The marginal costs of (six) service types change together with the productmix. The peak period marginal costs are similarly dependent on the productmix which influences how efficiently the capacity, often acquired to satisfy the peak period demands, can be utilized outside the peak period.

A Comparison of Privately and Publicly Owned Bus Companies and a Public Bus Transit Agency (1985)

 

©Antti Talvitie, Ari Heinilä, 1985

FULL PAPER, Pdf, 747 KB, 8 pages. 

A Comparison of Privately and Publicly Owned Bus Companies and a Public Bus Transit Agency

ANTTI TALVITIE and ARI HEINILÄ

ABSTRACT

An examination is made of the level of service provided to patrons, the cost structure, the productivity, and the profitability of the companies that offer regularly scheduled bus service in the Metropolitan area of Helsinki, Finland, which includes the cities of Espoo and Vantaa. Data are given on the following types of bus companies: city-owned, private, and a public bus transit agency, Helsingin Kaupungin Liikennelaitos, in Helsinki. The data are averages, and they conceal a variance that is often substantial.. It is believed that this variance is due more to management and managerial skills than to economies of scale or operating environment. Unit costs of bus transportation in the Helsinki region and the composition of these unit costs are presented. A discussion of productivity concludes the paper.