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This paper explores the effect of competition on prices and frequencies for the Interurban rail market in Europe. Intramodal competition is assessed by the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI). Intermodal competition takes into account new types of service such as coach and carpooling services. The originality of the analysis stems from the method and database used. The results show that intra-modal competition has a significant impact on frequencies but not on economy class prices because of oligopolistic organizations (duopoly). In addition, the effects of intermodal competition are limited mainly because of considerable differences between services in terms of travel time, comfort and users' preferences.

Based on choice experiments conducted in the Rhone-Alpes Region (France), we estimate an Integrated Choice and Latent Variable model that addresses heterogeneity in values of interurban travel time. We evaluate how sensitivity to travel time by public transport is distributed according to the level of comfort. Comfort is modeled as a function of objective attributes and individual perceptions about it: whether a seat is guaranteed, quality of trip experience (feelings experienced), (perceived) use of travel time during the trip, and overall ease of using public transport (perceived behavioral control). The results show that the last two play a significant role in the choice of a public transport mode and that the value of time function is downward sloping with higher levels of objective and perceived comfort. We discuss public policy implications and show that the most effective measure, in terms of economic benefits, would be to optimize and target investments in seat capacity supply.

This work was funded through a VIDI grant (452-14-004) provided by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). The study of relations between cities has long been a major focus in urban research. For decades, this field has grown integrating contributions from many disciplines. But today, the field appears rather fragmented. This study analyses the body of literature that has developed over the last 23 years to identify schools of thought on interurban relationships and to see to what extent these interact with each other. It does so by innovatively employing bibliometric analysis to the study of systems of cities, which allows a bottom-up identification of five schools of thought: one predominantly focusing on the regional or intra-metropolitan scale and centred on concepts of polycentricity; one addressing the global scale with a focus on world city networks; one employing simulation and complexity theories to understand behaviour of agents building the urban system bottom-up; one rooted in (new) economic geography and focusing on growth and decline in the urban system; and, one seeking regularities with respect to city size distributions. The conceptual, methodological and empirical aspects of these different schools are discussed by means of a ‘semantic map’ derived from the vocabulary of titles and abstracts of papers. The coupling of the semantic map with the citation networks of these schools of thought confirms the increasing fragmentation of the field over the last decades. However, in the most recent years, the different schools of thought start to interact slightly more. The desirability and feasibility of a move from multidisciplinarity to interdisciplinarity in urban systems research needs further exploration. Publisher PDF

International audience; The aim of this article is to conduct an analysis of the consequences of public modal shift policies on interurban journeys in France (people who live and work in two separate functional urban areas). It measures and analyses three facets of these policies: the potential for a modal shift from the car to public transport, the environmental consequences (CO2 emissions) and the social consequences (transport costs) of such a shift. The increase in travel costs brought about by higher fuel prices or from charges for access to urban centres, together with a reduction in the costs of travelling by public transport, are the three elements which-according to the models-have the biggest influence on modal shift and the reduction in CO2 emissions. However, our findings also show that these policies are socially regressive in that they financially advantage the higher socioeconomic categories.

This study has the goal to show the extreme necessity for a company to have access to information and to explain its weight in the decision making process. It presents how "Pays d’Oc Mobilités" has prepared for its future tenders. The whole preparatory measures are detailed, from the data gathering phase to the hypothesis creation. It has also been decided to include all the limits shown by the study, allowing it to be as complete as possible.; L’étude menée dans ce mémoire a pour but de mettre en exergue l’importance de « l’information » dans la prise de décision de l’entreprise. Elle présente la démarche effectuée par Pays D’Oc Mobilités concernant la préparation d’un appel d’offres. L’ensemble de la phase amont est donc détaillé, de la collecte de données à la réalisation d’hypothèse. Il a également été choisi d’y intégrer les limites qui bornent le projet afin que la présentation de la démarche soit le plus complète et critique possible.

The goal of this study is to highlight the effects of adverse weather conditions on traffic demand. The literature review underlines that some events, especially rain and snow, induce significant changes on both travel demand and traffic operations. These changes have several origins (modal shift, time departure postponement, travel cancellation. . .) and depend on many factors, such as time of day (day/night), week (weekdays/weekend), environment (urban/interurban area), trip purpose (discretionary/nondiscretionary). . . The literature review is therefore divided in two parts: a study of surveys that reveals the impact of weather on travel choices, and then statistical analysis conducted on traffic data collected from loop detectors. This preliminary work is completed by statistical analysis and modeling on operational interurban data (a section of the A43 French Highway) and urban data (route næ 3, Tokyo).; L'objectif de cet article est de mettre en évidence les effets de la météorologie sur la demande de trafic. Une étude approfondie de la littérature est d'abord réalisée : d'une part une analyse des conséquences sur la demande de déplacement au sens large à travers le prisme du modèle à quatre étapes (à partir d'enquêtes principalement) et d'autre part un focus sur la demande de trafic, en synthétisant les analyses réalisées à partir des données boucles. L'analyse montre ainsi que certains événements météorologiques, comme la pluie et surtout la neige, conduisent à des modifications dans les comportements (transfert modal, annulation du déplacement. . .) et à une baisse de la demande de trafic. La nature et l'amplitude des changements opérés dépendent de nombreux facteurs, comme la période du jour (journée/nuit), de la semaine (semaine/week-end), du milieu (urbain/interurbain), du motif du déplacement (contraint/non contraint). . . Cette bibliographie est ensuite complétée par des analyses statistiques et des modélisations sur des données opérationnelles recueillies en milieu interurbain (section Lyon-Chambéry de l'A43) et sur la route n 3 des autoroutes urbaines de Tokyo.

International audience; Purpose : The focus of this paper is to enhance our observation and knowledge of interurban road freight transport. It explores some possibilities for improving roadside freight surveys, usually used to gather origin-destination data. Methodology : To achieve this, new questions are added to a standard roadside survey form, and the enhanced survey form is tested through two surveys. The new questions relate to currently unobserved variables: the vehicle volume occupied by freight; the method of organisation (double crew, relays) used by the carriers; the existence of speci c logistical imperatives; and drivers' compulsory breaks. Results : The questions on volume constraint and carrier organisation prove to be the most informative. These two questions are thus two promising areas for improvement in roadside freight surveys. The questions about speci c logistical imperatives and driver breaks prove less fruitful. Conclusion : The paper concludes that it is possible, through minor modi cations in data collection protocols, to signi cantly enhance observation quality in road freight transport activity.

Numéro spécial : Urban Networks and Network Theory; International audience; The ability of cities to operate in global networks is usually measured according to their central position within multinational firm linkages. These measures are often used at the interurban level and neglect the intraurban processes of multiplier effects. The present study demonstrates that this affects the measurement of city centrality in business networks. Intraurban capabilities of interaction are considered in the measurement of interurban indices. The study is based on hypothetical networks at a micro level between long-range links and it mobilises processes as agglomeration economies, social capital developments and transaction costs. These processes at the intraurban level strengthen the efficiency of interurban linkages. It is suggested that the indices used to measure city centrality should include these local effects. Applied to a small sample of six firm networks, the methodology shows advantages for emerging large metropolises, but insufficient local effects for specialised clusters. The multilevel approach offers improved perspectives for the comparison of city centralities.

This study reports the main findings of the Travel time Prediction based on electronic Toll collection (ETC) data with wEather effect integration on mOtorways (TPTEO) project aiming at developing and implementing a route planner tool and travel time prediction system on the interurban motorway network managed by French motorway AREA Company. One of the main innovative characteristics of this project is the use of toll collection data (TCD) to derive speed and travel time estimation and prediction. This data source is becoming more and more available on motorway facilities and provides an efficient way not only to estimate and predict travel time but also to achieve the origin–destination (OD) matrices elaboration and exhibit trends in traffic. Based on the previous studies on weather effect quantification, the prediction algorithm is designed to account for the weather impact during the prediction process. The resulting tool is considered to be accurate enough and paves the way for developing weather responsive advanced traffic management and information systems.