Harry Clarke

The Sunday Age today presents a proposed ‘transport revolution’ for Melbourne prepared by Monash University’s Professor Graham Currie – a ‘transport expert’.  The plan recognizes that expanding road supply is not a major sensible option in the face of Melbourne’s ballooning congestion problems and instead argues for creating a ‘road hierarchy’ that gives pedestrians, cars, [...]

Again a retrieved post – thanks Christina.

Another retrieved post-hacking post. A letter published in AFR on January 16.

David Prentice and I wrote this as a reader’s guide to the main ideas in our longer report for the Australian  Future Tax System Review.  It is published online by Science Alerts.

I gave a talk on this topic tonight at the Victorian Branch of the Economic Society of Australia,  Transport Forum.  The powerpoints are here.  Met some top transport analysts and some prospering ex-students. A good evening and a great meal afterwards in China Town. I agree that I have pushed this area hard on the [...]

It is obvious that state governments in Australia are fearful of pricing road use. This is so even though it is almost universally acknowledged that such policies make sense in terms of generating efficiency gains through reduced congestion and more effective use of roads by heavy vehicles.  The backlash that the Brumby Government received from [...]

 I will be speaking in Melbourne on Transport Taxes and Congestion Pricing at the Transport Economics Forum at 5 PM Thursday 27 August – Reserve Bank Function Room.

The paper I co-wrote with Dr. David Prentice on “A Conceptual Framework for the Reform of Taxes Related to Roads and Transport” for Australia’s Future Tax System Review was released today. Comments are welcome.

In commenting on an earlier thread Paul H cited a graphic showing how the Chinese know what the short-run travel times are in a vast city like Beijing.  It is apparently based on the (real time) travel times of 10,000 taxis in the city. It provides a guide to instantaneous marginal congestion costs based on information from GPS [...]

One of the pretty results of road supply theory is that if you add extra links to a road network you can make everyone on the network worse off.  Equivalently closing down links can improve all traffic flows.  JB pointed me to this nice exposition.  It is called the Braess paradox and its a well [...]

Here is a seminar I gave at La Trobe University on road tax reform.  Comments, questions, outrageously over-the-top praise and emphatic disagreements very welcome.

Mobile phones have revolutionised our lives.  Analogous communication devices in vehicles can change and improve the way we travel. Economy-wide efficiencies can result from adopting these technologies.

Here are some libertarian ideas on privatising roads. Roads would be ‘privatised’ like ‘bubblegum’ and ‘beer’ according to the author.  It is difficult to understand how network externality effects would be catered for or how the local monopoly aspects of having what would inevitably – given the subadditivity of the costs – one supplier connecting many nodes.  [...]

The system by which roads are provided in Australia is in a mess.  Roads are funded from revenues collected from fuel excises in the most part by the Commonwealth which builds some roads. Most roads however are provided by local government (which gets funds from the Commonwealth, from local taxes and from parking fines) and [...]

The implementation plan for Kevin Rudd’s $43b already-announced broadband plan is now to begin.  This is to now determine how the project will be built, financed and operated. I guess better-late-than-never. Ziggy Switkowski is rumored to be a candidate for the chief honcho position.  I assume Ziggy’s enthusiastic endorsement of this project will help him [...]

Much traffic congestion in urban areas is caused by cruising for a parking spot.  Shoup (2005) suggested charging market-clearing prices for parking and leaving 15 per cent of parking spots vacant so that people can always park if they pay the requisite fee.

I have posted recently on congestion externalities and traffic accident externalities. I want to finish this series of posts with some comments on externalities associated with doing damage to roads. They are among the most interesting transport externalities in Australia and the basis for proposed reforms of the Australian road freight system.  These reforms might eventually [...]

Tim Lambert at Deltoid discusses the idea of taxing heavy vehicles more (or giving light vehicles a tax concession) on the grounds that they do more (less) damage in collisions.  I support the sentiment of this proposal although drawing on my earlier post on accident externalities the taxes should ideally operate through insurance premiums.

The bypass around Frankston will be toll free and will cost taxpayers $750 million. It will go ahead as a public-private partnership even if the Commonwealth Government gives not a cent towards its funding.  To Premier John Brumby it is another instance of Kevin Rudd’s ‘nation-building’.  Quote: ‘..quite frankly, the economy and the construction industry (need it)’. [...]

Peter Martin has a good article on troubles in the Australian car industry. I’ll comment on a few points.
Australians have traditionally had a liking for large medium cars. This was the market segment where our manufacturers had a comparative advantage. We then imported small cars and exported, with for a time growing success, [...]