Seminars

 

Seminar Series 2011-2012

 

Seminars take place on Wednesdays, 1pm-2pm, in room G15, St. Mary’s (6 on map), unless otherwise indicated.

ALL WELCOME

An access guide for St Mary’s building can be found here. If you have additional access requirements, please let us know.

 

Monday 24th September 2012, 12.00 – 13:00 (Aberdeen University, Kings College Campus, Old Aberdeen, Room TBC)

Dr Masayuki Fukumoto

“Public Transport in Japanese Rural Areas - from the View Point of Municipalities, Private Bus Operators and Residents”

Masayuki Fukumoto is a Postdoctoral Researcher from the Graduate school of Environmental Studies, Nagoya University, Japan and is also currently a Visiting Fellow within the Centre for Transport Research, University of Aberdeen

Abstract: Japanese public transport in rural areas is facing many difficulties. For example, population and passenger decline, financial problems, changing of social needs etc.. In recent years, some regulations and legal systems of public transport were changed. I will introduce some public transport examples in Japanese cities and rural areas from the view point of cooperative system of municipalities, bus operators and residents.

 

 

Wednesday 6th June 2012, 16.30 – 17:30 (Aberdeen University, Kings College Campus, Old Aberdeen, Room MacRobert 266)

Professor John Barrett (Sustainability Research Institute, Leeds University)

“The Role of Sustainable Consumption in Climate Policy”

John Barrett is Professor of Ecological Economics at the Sustainability Research Institute, University of Leeds.  His research focuses on the development of sustainable consumption and production models to understand the carbon flow in products through trade, developing scenarios to demonstrate how changes in demand could influence climate policy. John has been an advisor to the UK Government on developing carbon footprint standards for products and organisations. His research provides the official statistics for the UK on consumption-based GHG emissions. John is a core partner of the UK Energy Research Centre and is also a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change contributing to understanding the trends and drivers in GHG emissions for Working Group III.

 

 

Friday 2nd March 2012, 13.00 – 14.00 (Aberdeen University, Kings College Campus, Old Aberdeen, Room 117 St Mary's)

James Laird (Institute for Transport Studies, Leeds University)

“The Value of Dedicated Cyclist and Pedestrian Infrastructure on Rural Roads”

Abstract: In contrast to urban areas, very little quantitative work has been done on the demand for
rural cycling infrastructure and the willingness of users to pay for such infrastructure. Furthermore
there is little evidence on the demand for or value of walking infrastructure in either urban or rural
areas. The value of and the propensity to walk or cycle in rural areas is likely to be different from that
in urban areas, partly due to the distances involved, but also the different levels of traffic. Using
evidence from Ireland this paper presents new evidence on the value of pedestrian and cyclist
infrastructure in a rural environment. The models are sensitive to the household's location as well as
other demographic factors. Average willingness to pay estimates for users of the facilities are 1.38
cents/min for walking and 1.09 cents/min for cycling. These results when applied ex ante to a number
of proposed rural road upgrades demonstrate that such infrastructure offers value for money. There
remain significant barriers to increased participation in walking and cycling, which makes it difficult to estimate demand and willingness to pay models based on data, which do not reveal peoples' attitudes to walking and cycling (e.g. census data).

 

 

Thursday 10th November, 13.00 – 14.00 (Aberdeen University, Kings College Campus, Old Aberdeen, Room MACROBERT 302)

Dr. Cameron Gordon (Associate Professor Economics, University of Canberra)

“Agglomeration economies and other spatial impacts of infrastructure: do we know what we're looking for (or at)?”

 

Abstract: Traditional benefit-cost analysis and other program evaluation techniques applied to public infrastructure investment tend to focus on relatively narrowly conceived measures of market benefit (e.g. a transport project's reductions in travel-times that will be generated for travellers); these are sometimes supplemented with market valuations of broader social impacts (e.g. lowered Greenhouse Gas Emissions).  In many cases benefit measures such as these are more than sufficient, especially when considering increments to existing transport and other infrastructure networks.  However, public infrastructure, especially transport, can have significant spatial effects such as expansion in effective access to markets for goods and services and an ability to achieve agglomeration and other spatial economies across those markets.  Agglomeration economies in particular are inconsistently understood and often incompletely specified.  This presentation discusses how these types of effects can be missed by traditional methods and how methods might be enhanced to account for them.

 

About the speaker

Cameron Gordon is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Canberra's Faculty of Business and Government and currently a Visiting Professor at the Imperial College of London Centre for Transport Studies.  Professor Gordon has previously been a Visiting Professor at the University of Sydney Institute for Transport and Logistics Studies (ITLS) and a Visiting Fellow in Public Policy at the City University of New York (CUNY) Research Foundation.  He has had prior academic appointments in Finance with CUNY and in Public Policy and Adminstration with the University of Southern California.  Prior to entering academia, Professor Gordon had a long public service career with appointments at the US Congress Joint Committee on Taxation, the US Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations and the City of New York Municipal Water Finance Authority.  His research interests include transport and economic development, urban passenger and freight transport and infrastructure privatisation and PPPs.