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How large are the benefits of transportation infrastructure projects, and what explains these benefits? This paper uses archival data from colonial India to investigate the impact of India's vast railroad network. Guided by four results from a general equilibrium trade model, I find that railroads: (1) decreased trade costs and interregional price gaps; (2) increased interregional and international trade; (3) increased real income levels; and (4) that a sufficient statistic for the effect of railroads on welfare in the model accounts well for the observed reduced-form impact of railroads on real income in the data. (JEL H54, L92, N75, O22, R12, R42)

A discussion of the sustainability and travel behaviour impacts of ride-hailing is provided, based on an extensive literature review of studies from both developed and developing countries. The effects of ride-hailing on vehicle-kilometres travelled (VKT) and traffic externalities such as congestion, pollution and crashes are analysed. Modal substitution, user characterisation and induced travel outputs are also examined. A summary of findings follows. On the one hand, ride-hailing improves the comfort and security of riders for several types of trips and increases mobility for car-free households and for people with physical and cognitive limitations. Ride-hailing has the potential to be more efficient for rider-driver matching than street-hailing. Ride-hailing is expected to reduce parking requirements, shifting attention towards curb management. On the other hand, results on the degree of complementarity and substitution between ride-hailing and public transport and on the impact of ride-hailing on VKT are mixed; however, there is a tendency from studies with updated data to show that the ride-hailing substitution effect of public transport is stronger than the complementarity effect in several cities and that ride-hailing has incremented motorised traffic and congestion. Early evidence on the impact of ride-hailing on the environment and energy consumption is also concerning. A longer-term assessment must estimate the ride-hailing effect on car ownership. A social welfare analysis that accounts for both the benefits and costs of ride-hailing remains unexplored. The relevance of shared rides in a scenario with mobility-as-a-service subscription packages and automated vehicles is also highlighted.

We exploit the construction and eventual demise of the colonial railroads in Ghana, and most of the rest of Africa, to study the impact of transportation investments in poor countries. Using new data on railroads and cities spanning over one century, we find that railroads had large effects on the distribution of economic activity during the colonial period and these effects have persisted to date, although railroads collapsed and road networks expanded considerably after independence. Initial transportation investments may thus have large effects in poor countries. As countries develop, increasing returns solidify their spatial distribution, and subsequent investments may have smaller effects.

We investigate the effect of lane kilometers of roads on vehicle-kilometers traveled (VKT) in US cities. VKT increases proportionately to roadway lane kilometers for interstate highways and probably slightly less rapidly for other types of roads. The sources for this extra VKT are increases in driving by current residents, increases in commercial traffic, and migration. Increasing lane kilometers for one type of road diverts little traffic from other types of road. We find no evidence that the provision of public transportation affects VKT. We conclude that increased provision of roads or public transit is unlikely to relieve congestion.

Large-scale transport infrastructure investments connect both large metropolitan centres of production as well as small peripheral regions. Are the resulting trade cost reductions a force for the diffusion of industrial and total economic activity to peripheral regions, or do they reinforce the concentration of production in space? This article exploits China's National Trunk Highway System as a large-scale natural experiment to contribute to our understanding of this question. The network was designed to connect provincial capitals and cities with an urban population above 500,000. As a side effect, a large number of small peripheral counties were connected to large metropolitan agglomerations. To address non-random route placements on the way between targeted city nodes, I propose an instrumental variable strategy based on the construction of least cost path spanning tree networks. The estimation results suggest that network connections have led to a reduction in GDP growth among non-targeted peripheral counties. This effect appears to be driven by a significant reduction in industrial output growth. Additional results present evidence in support of a trade-based channel in the light of falling trade costs between peripheral and metropolitan regions.

Complex network theory is a multidisciplinary research direction of complexity science which has experienced a rapid surge of interest over the last two decades. Its applications in land-based urban traffic network studies have been fruitful, but have suffered from the lack of a systematic cognitive and integration framework. This paper reviews complex network theory related knowledge and discusses its applications in urban traffic network studies in several directions. This includes network representation methods, topological and geographical related studies, network communities mining, network robustness and vulnerability, big-data-based research, network optimization, co-evolution research and multilayer network theory related studies. Finally, new research directions are pointed out. With these efforts, this physics-based concept will be more easily and widely accepted by urban traffic network planners, designers, and other related scholars.

The widespread adoption of smartphones followed by an emergence of transportation network companies (TNC) have influenced the way individuals travel. The authors use the 2017 National Household Travel Survey to explore socioeconomic, frequency of use, and spatial characteristics associated with TNC users. The results indicate that TNC riders tend to be younger, earn higher incomes, have higher levels of education, and are more likely to reside in urban areas compared to the aggregate United States population. Of the TNC users, 60% hailed a ride three times or less in the previous month, indicating that TNC services are primarily used for special occasions. TNC users use public transit at higher rates and own fewer vehicles compared to the aggregate United States population. In fact, the TNC user population reported similar frequencies of use for both TNC services and public transit during the previous month. Approximately 40% of TNC users reside in regions with population densities greater than 10, 000 persons per square mile compared to only 15% for non-TNC users. Lastly, reported use of public transit for TNC users living in large cities (> 1 million) with access to heavy rail was almost three times greater when compared to similar sized cities without heavy rail. The average monthly frequency of TNC use was also elevated when heavy rail was present.

Das Sondervermögen Infrastruktur dürfte in Teilen an die Deutsche Bahn gehen. Wird damit eine Trendwende eingeläutet? Oder kann es zu Preissteigerungen kommen? Der Artikel vergleicht Bauvolumen und Baupreise der Schiene über die vergangenen Jahre. Das Ergebnis ist niederschmetternd: Das Bauvolumen ist nicht gestiegen, sondern es sind nur die Preise explodiert. Dies wirft die Frage auf, ob und wie staatliche Konjunkturprogramme in spezialisierten Branchen wie dem Bahnbau Preistreiber sind.

Research on Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is rising but far from complete. This special issue (SI) aims to enhance our understanding of how firms in Asia and beyond strategically respond to the BRI and what new theories and investigations are needed to better elucidate this new environment. In this editorial, we present a brief description of BRI, a review of related studies in the international business (IB) domain, a summary of the articles included in the SI and their contributions to the study of BRI, and an agenda for future research. We suggest that more attention should be given to examination of organizational heterogeneity under the BRI theme. In particular, there exists a variety of players like the governments of the host countries, non-government institutions, firms with different ownership structures, managers with different backgrounds, and their idiosyncratic characteristics should be incorporated in BRI studies. Moreover, future studies should find fine-grained ways to theorize and operationalize the policy effects of BRI. We call for further investigation of the consequences of BRI, including but not limiting to different aspects of IB activities, innovation, entrepreneurship, and corporate social responsibility.