Public services have been provided in an electronic format to reduce time and cost and to improve service quality. In this context, significant investments have been made since 2003 in Turkey and many government agencies started to provide services via the Internet. Government agencies need to learn the effectiveness of the offered services and the benefits of these services to citizens. The purposes of this thesis are to evaluate e-government websites in a comprehensive manner and to identify website design related problems. Especially, the study focuses on user-centered design of the e-government application. For this purpose, 33 e-government websites are evaluated, and an interview was conducted with eight government agencies websites&rsquo / designers. As a result of these studies, the problems encountered while using government electronic services are identified. Also, causes of these problems are found out. The study aims to provide a guideline in order to design user-centered e-government applications.

Transit-oriented development (TOD) and its effect on property values research has resulted in mixed findings. Some researchers report positive effects on property values while others are negative or inconclusive. Research on cities such as New York City, Boston, Atlanta and San Francisco have focused on the proximity to rail stations and the negative externalities that accompany it by conducting hedonic pricing models. Other studies have focused more specifically on residential or commercial parcels and their property values at different time points of station development. This research focuses on five MARTA stations within Fulton County, Georgia: Ashby Station, Lindbergh Station, Sandy Springs Station, Vine City Station and West End Station. Data was obtained from MARTA and Fulton County that includes parcel and tax assessor information. Buffers zones within one-fourth mile, one-half mile and one- mile were created around the stations and an average appraised property value and average land value was determined. A comparative analysis was conducted to determine the effects proximity to rail has at stations with planned and unplanned development. The research shows that TOD in the Atlanta area has minimal impact on property values. What appears to have more of an impact is the median household income of the neighborhood surrounding the transit station, which of course reflects the value of property afforded.

Public transit is a key method for increasing sustainability in the transportation sector; transit can decrease emissions harmful to the environment and increase social equity by providing improved mobility. Given the limited resources available to build and operate public transit, it makes sense to meet multiple sustainability goals simultaneously. Transit that is accessible by non-motorized means and serves multiple trip types can potentially reduce vehicle usage and increase mobility for everyone. This research assesses whether transit systems with high non-motorized access rates and non-work trip usage are meeting social and environmental goals and what factors impact non-work and non-motorized access rates. Eight criteria were used to choose 17 metropolitan regions that represent a range of transit conditions in the US. Non-parametric correlations were calculated between non-work usage and non-motorized access and a dataset of 30 continuous and 11 categorical variables that measure regional characteristics, transit efficiency, land use, rider demographics, and transit operations and design. In-depth case studies, including site visits and interviews, were done for Denver, Colorado; Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota; and Sacramento, California. The correlations and case studies both confirm that transit system with high non-work usage and non-motorized access are not meeting social or environmental sustainability goals. These systems primarily serve low-income riders, are less well funded, and provide limited service. Only systems with higher per capita funding levels meet social goals and higher funding is correlated to higher income riders. However, having higher income riders does not imply that social goals are met. Regional policies regarding operations and design of transit can increase usage for non-work trips and non-motorized access and are necessary to ensure both social and environmental goals are met.

This thesis compares German transit systems to the transit system of Atlanta, Georgia. Different performance measures are used to assess the difference in the respective rail and bus systems. The results show that the German transit systems are overall more successful and efficient than the system in Atlanta.

Local agencies must comply with environmental justice regulation and as such, it is important that they possess practical tools to identify target populations and assess impacts of projects, programs, and policies on these populations. These tools are not readily available or fully developed to evaluate impacts on a regional level, especially when the impacts are benefits rather than burdens. This issue comes into play when accessibility is assessed. This analysis measures accessibility for an environmental justice evaluation using spatial statistical clusters and cumulative opportunity. It shows that the majority of schools, libraries and local transit lines are within areas with high concentrations of target populations, however, park space is limited in these areas. Alternative approaches for environmental justice assessments of regional outcomes such as accessibility provide opportunities for MPOs to gain a greater understanding of the regional impacts of transportation improvements as well as more accurately comply with the spirit of environmental justice regulations.

<p>This paper provides support for the view that there should be a close link between inno-vation and export performance. In essence it is argued that successful exporting requires penetration of a market through an innovation process. For a small country like Sweden depending on production of knowledge intensive goods and product competition, to re-tain its international competitiveness, this notion is likely to hold true. Against this background an analysis aimed at testing to what extent Swedish export capacity can be determined by innovation is presented. In addition the factors perceived as influencing this capacity are identified and their relative importance is assessed. Specifically patent and R&D data are treated as the main proxies for innovation activity. Moreover the rela-tive export and innovation performance among the Swedish municipalities is analyzed. A spatial version of the product cycle model is introduced as it explicitly captures the process of innovation, relocation and export dynamics and forms a link to the succeed-ing theorizing. In particular it suggests that certain regions are more likely to be the lo-cation for innovative exporting firms due to advantageous intrinsic favorable attributes specific to these locations. In the specified model such attributes that are assumed to in-fluence export capacity in the Swedish municipalities are defined as local, intra- and in-terregional accessibility to research, average number of patents and density of employ-ment. Regression results suggest that accessibility to research from within the munici-pality exerts the principal effect on export and innovation capacity. Moreover the influ-ence of accessibility to industry R&D dominates over the university variable in both re-gressions, with total and per kilogram export value as dependents. In addition regional size exerts a rather strong positive effect on total export value.</p>

<p>Syftet med denna magisteruppsats är att studera huruvida en hög tillgänglighet till FoU vid företag respektive universitet genererar exporttillväxt. Denna tankegång grundar sig i produktcykelteorin varför även denna uppsats är en analys i dess validi-tet. Företag i en region som har stor tillgång till kunskap och forskning bör även vara i en frontposition inom export. Denna tillgänglighet har grupperats i forskning vi universitet och högskolor eller forskning inom företag. Därtill kan även denna till-gänglighet indelas vid dess geografiska lokalisering.</p><p>På grund av data som använts vid analysen och dess komplexitet är resultaten troliga-re en indikation än exakta. Tillgängligheten är tveklöst av vikt för exporttillväxten men de olika underavdelningarna skiljer sig från varandra. Företagsforskning tycks påverka exporttillväxten positivt oavsett lokalisering. Därtill följer resultaten teorin eftersom den externa tillgängligheten till företagsforskningen har en betydligt större inverkan än den externa.</p><p>Tillgängligheten till universitetsforskning ger de mest anmärkningsvärda resultaten. Utan en statistisk säkerhet kan endast en tendens utrönas. Universitetsforskningen ter sig svårare för företag att absorbera oavsett om den utförs inom regionen eller ex-ternt. Relationen mellan företag och universitet kan antas vara av dubbel natur där de å ena sidan påverkar varandra positivt samtidigt som de konkurrerar om samma ut-rymme i en region.</p> / <p>The purpose of this master thesis is to study whether a high accessibility to R&D performed by firms and universities respectively generate export growth. This sug-gestion is founded in the theory of the product cycle why this thesis also scrutinizes its validity. Firms in a region which have a high access to knowledge and research should have a front position within export. This access can be sub-divided into the unit of performance or with respect to the geographical location.</p><p>Due to the data used in the analysis and its complexity, the final result is an indica-tion rather than precise. The accessibility is doubtlessly of major importance for the export growth but the subdivisions give different results. Research performed by firms seems to affect the export growth positively irrespective of the localisation. Also, the external accessibility to firm research has a larger impact on the export growth than if it is performed internally.</p><p>The access to research performed by universities gives the most notable results. Without statistical significance a tendency can only be distinguished. The research performed by universities seems more difficult to absorb by firms irrespective of geographical location. The relation between firms and universities may be two folded where it is positive as well as competitive.</p>

<p><strong>Abstract</strong></p><p>The purpose of this thesis is to estimate if imports of goods at the municipal level have an effect on labour productivity. The theoretical framework used in the thesis is based on the concept of accessibility, city growth in connection to imports, networks and nodes, clusters and economies of scale. Seven independent variables were chosen for the regression, three import accessibility variables to estimate if there is a connection between imports and productivity and Technology Gap, Population Density, Distance to Stockholm and Time. The regression model itself is built on the regression model in Fingleton (2001) but reformulated in this master thesis. Due to high collinearity between the accessibility variables they were added together to measure total accessibility. Regression results showed significant t-statistics for all variables included confirming that there is a relationship between imports of goods and labour productivity.</p><p> </p><p> </p> / <p><strong><p>Sammanfattning</p></strong></p><p>Syftet i denna magisteruppsats är att analysera om import av produkter på kommunal nivå är korrelerad med kommunal arbetsproduktivitet. Det teoretiska kapitlet är baserat på konceptet tillgänglighet, tillväxt och import i stadsregioner, nätverk och noder samt skalekonomi. Sju testvariabler valdes för regressionsmodellen som är baserad på Fingleton (2001). De viktigaste variablerna i modellen är inomkommunal‐, inomregional‐, och extern tillgänglighet till import. Resterande variabler i regressionsestimeringen mäter skillnad i teknologi mellan kommuner, populationsdensitet, avstånd till Stockholm samt tid. På grund av hög multikollinearitet mellan tillgänglighetsvariablerna estimerades modellen om genom att använda total tillgänglighet. Regressionen visade signifikanta t‐värden för alla variabler vilket bekräftar att det finns ett samband mellan import av produkter och arbetsproduktivitet på kommunal nivå.</p>

<p>This thesis consists of two parts. The first part analyzesthe accessibility, generation and license holding effects incar ownership models. The second part develops a route choicemodeling framework with an attempt to address the differencesin drivers' route choice behavior. These two parts of work areboth based on the discrete choice theory - the car ownershipmodels are built up on the standard logit model, whereas theroute choice models are formulated in a mixed logit form.</p><p>The study result of the first part shows that measuring theaccessibility by the monetary inclusive value reasonably wellcaptures the mechanism of the accessibility impact. Otheraccessibility proxies such as the parking costs, parking typeand house type are correlated with the accessibility but not toa great extent. Both young and old households are less likelyto have a car. The reduction of the propensity to own a car issignificant for households with average birth year before 1920,whereas this reduction is moderate for households with birthyear between 1920 and 1945. It is also demonstrated thatdriving license holding choice is conditional on the carownership level choice, and that these two choices need to bemodeled in a dynamic framework.</p><p>The second part of the work investigates the performance ofthe mixed logit model using both simulated data and empiricalroute switching data. The empirical study mainly focused on theimpacts of information and incident related factors on drivers'route switching behavior.</p><p>The result shows that using mixed logit gives a significantimprovement in model performance as well as a more sensitiveexplanation of drivers' decision-making behavior. For apopulation with greatly varying tastes, simply using thestandard logit model to analyze its behavior can yield veryunrealistic results. However, care must be taken when settingthe number of random draws for simulating the choiceprobability of the mixed logit model in order to get reliableestimates.</p><p>The empirical results demonstrate that incident relatedfactors such as delay and information reliability havesignificant impacts on drivers' route switching, where themagnitude of the response to the change in the delay is shownto vary significantly between individuals. Other factors, suchas confidence in the estimated delay, gender, frequency of cardriving and attitude towards congestion, also make majorcontributions. In addition, it is found that individual's routeswitching behavior may differ depending on the purpose of thetrip and when the choice is made, i.e. pre-trip oren-route.</p><p><b>Keywords</b>: car ownership, accessibility, logit model,route choice, heterogeneity, mixed logit model</p>

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