This dissertation contains three essays examining the transportation sector in the United States using methods from empirical industrial organization. Chapter 1 investigates the entry and characteristics of public direct current fast charging (DCFC) stations for the fueling of electric vehicles (EVs). The entry model endogenizes the quality of DCFC sites by having participating charging networks take into account market characteristics, competition effects, and the policy environment when making entry and quality investment decisions. The entry model is augmented with data on station utilization that is constructed from web-scraped records of station availability collected over 10-minute intervals throughout the year 2023. In examining the policy environment, Chapter 1 focuses on the Low-Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) credit program in California, a program that provides tradable credits to DCFC charging stations, with credit allocations increasing, but marginally diminishing, in nameplate power ratings. I simulate counterfactual entry under various expenditure equivalent alternative subsidy schemes. I find that an alternative credit schedule proportional to nameplate power results in a simulated 5.0 percent increase in output from high-power sites, but the resultant aggregate output is left largely unchanged given the offsetting effect of having fewer low-power DCFC sites enter. Chapter 1 also examines the trade-offs between lump-sum and per-unit subsidies, finding that per-unit subsidies result in higher per-site utilization but lower site entry. A hybrid design combining lump-sum and per-unit subsidies is proposed as a viable alternative. Chapter 2 examines the response of EV drivers to time-of-use (TOU) pricing at public DCFC stations. In particular, demand is compared between two networks offering public charging services of comparable of comparable quality that differ, however, in their pricing strategies. Namely, one firm offers pricing that does not vary by the time of day, while the other offers TOU pricing that exhibits on-peak increases and off-peak discounts. Using a Poisson arrival model, I estimate the price elasticity of demand to be approximately unit elastic around 4pm, the time-of-day at which pricing shifts from off-peak to on-peak pricing for one of the two focal firms. In contrast to residential electricity users who encounter TOU pricing, EV drivers are found to be more price-sensitive, in part reflecting drivers' outside option of charging at home at lower tariffs. Chapter 3 evaluates how demand for passenger air travel evolved during the COVID-19 pandemic. Air travelers can be characterized by differing willingness to pay for the same ticket. While domestic air fare and passenger counts collapsed with the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic to the United States in March 2020, I find that the resulting composition of air travelers post-pandemic was more price-inelastic, relative to pre-pandemic levels. Results are obtained using a discrete choice model that incorporates unobservable product characteristics and two latent passenger types.

published_or_final_version / Environmental Management / Master / Master of Science in Environmental Management