Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item REDUCING CONGESTION POST-COVID-19 THROUGH TELECOMMUTING AND HOV LANES(2021) Ugwu, Nneoma Maxine; Niemeier, Deb; Civil Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The historic low traffic during the COVID-19 pandemic reignited interest in telecommuting as a low-cost effective Travel Demand Management (TDM) strategy. Telecommuting, introduced as a TDM in 1970, has been studied extensively but there has never been an opportunity of this magnitude to investigate its potential. As the percentage of teleworkers increased from five percent to over 50 percent in 2020, commuter traffic in the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia region was almost non-existent. We argue that increased telecommuting played a significant role in the traffic reduction during the pandemic, and that continued sustainable and equitable telecommuting coupled with implementing more High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes could significantly remove traffic bottlenecks. This study uses mobility data from the University of Maryland COVID-19 platform and traffic data from the Maryland Department of Transportation to specify a regression model that estimates roadway performance in hypothetical telecommuting and HOV scenarios. The investigation showed that the reduced work-related trips were a major cause of the congestion reduction in 2020. With only 20 percent more of the population telecommuting than in 2019, there was a significant improvement in roadway congestion on almost all major roadways. We propose two low-cost sustainable transportation strategies to maintain the reduced congestion post-COVID-19: promoting telecommuting and implementing HOV lanes. Policies through which the government and employers can support telecommuting are also recommended.Item Market Structure and Congestion Externalities: Theory and application to the ride-hailing industry(2021) Gomez Gelvez, Julian Andres; Williams III, Roberton C; Agricultural and Resource Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The encompassing theme of this dissertation is the analysis of markets that feature market power and negative externalities. I focus mainly on congestion externalities, as externalities that affect only market participants. The first chapter evaluates the efficiency of private pricing of congestible resources. I develop a model of congestible resource use that explicitly considers a bivariate distribution of reservation values and sensitivities to congestion across potential users. This model highlights the importance of the correlation between reservation values and sensitivities to congestion to judge the efficiency of private pricing. Numerical results based on a road pricing example show that monopolistic pricing can range from very inefficient (price too high) when the correlation is negative to almost complete efficiency when it is strong and positive. The second chapter studies ride-hailing markets mediated by digital platforms like Uber. I extend the model of the first chapter to include a supply side of drivers. A monopolistic platform chooses prices on both sides of the market to maximize profit. I calibrate the model to the morning peak period of Bogota, Colombia. The results show that the price gap imposed by a monopolistic platform corresponds to about two thirds of the net marginal external cost caused by an additional ride hailer. A congestion charge on ride hailing is then justified. However, the optimal congestioncharge, as a tax on the price charged to riders, covers only 50% of the marginal external cost. The last chapter explores the effects of modifying several assumptions of the ride-hailing model developed in the second chapter. The main modification is to move from a monopolistic market structure to a duopoly. I show that absent any differentiation between platforms, competition leads to zero profits. This result supports the idea that ride-hailing markets gravitate towards a single platform. Assuming a small amount of differentiation, the duopoly equilibrium reduces the price charged to riders and increases the size of the market. This expansion reduces overall welfare due to the external effect on traffic congestion and calls for a higher congestion charge.Item An Agent-Based Model To Examine Housing Price, Household Location Choice, And Commuting Times In Knox County, Tennessee(2007-08-22) Mulbrandon, Matthew; Clifton, Kelly; Civil Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The research conducted for this thesis uses an agent-based model (ABM) to simulate housing price, location, and journey to work (JTW) times for households in Knox County, Tennessee. The model is a unique hybrid, combining analytic functions and agents that typically have been used separately for theoretical urban research in very simplified urban landscapes. At the same time it uses data from a real urban area to run and calibrate the model, which is common for statistically-based or gravity models. There are two goals for this simulation; first to examine the feasibility of this approach in urban modeling, second to test the effect of altering transportation times and preferences on agent behavior. Results show this approach can fit real data and represent urban processes reasonably well. In addition several interesting and surprising results are reported from model runs.