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High-Occupancy toll (HOT) lanes allow lower-occupant vehicles (LOVs) to use a HOV lane for a fee, while maintaining free travel to qualifying HOVs. HOT lanes are gaining interest throughout the country as a strategy for meeting multiple performance objectives in congested urban freeway corridors. Currently there are ten fully operational HOT lanes around the country in seven different states and this research examined the nine of them (excluding I-35 W). Even with only a handful of operational HOT lane projects, there is great diversity in terms of HOT lane design and operations. With HOT lane implementation there are many issues, including: toll rates, vehicle occupancy requirement, number of access points, and safety. This research examined (i) the different factors which lead to the development of the HOT lanes in their respective corridors (ii) the objectives of the HOT lanes (iii) changes made in the corridor due to HOT lane implementation (iv) the different impacts of the HOT lanes and (v) the extent to which the objectives of the HOT lanes were achieved. Using three pairs of HOT lanes with similar design and operational characteristics, comparisons were made to examine the impacts of the similar HOT lanes in two different corridors. With the strict registration requirement for HOV3+ on the I-95 Express Lanes there were indications that some carpoolers broke up in to lower occupancy vehicles. Tolled access for HOV2s on I-95 as well as the SR 91 Express Lanes resulted in lower usage of the Express Lanes by the HOV2s (fewer than 30 percent of the total corridor HOV2s) as compared to a conventional HOV lane (60 percent) where HOV2 access is free. The effect of availability of transit on the HOT lanes can also be seen from SR 91 as compared to I-95. On SR 91, the Express bus does not use the Express Lanes and there was almost no change in its ridership after the Express Lanes were implemented. However, on I-95, the Express bus uses the Express Lanes and travel time of buses decreased by 17 minutes due to Express Lanes implementation. The Express bus ridership also increased by 30 percent. On the SR167 and I-25 HOT lanes, the exogenous factors like gas prices and economic recession seemed to influence the usage of the HOT lanes. In both the HOT Lanes, carpool usage was positively correlated to the gasoline prices. On I-25, the increasing unemployment rate coincided with the decreasing toll paying travelers. On SR 167 there were also indications of mode shifts among the transit, carpool and toll paying SOVs due to fluctuating gas prices. With declining gas prices, the transit and carpool usage went down while toll paying users increased. An inverse relationship between the convenience of access points and the safety perceived by the HOT lane users was found. For example, I-15 Express Lanes in Salt Lake City reduced the access points from unrestricted with the previous HOV lanes to limited with the Express Lanes. As a result, more predictable merging led to an increase in the perceived safety of the Express lanes as well as the speed of the corridor. On the other hand, some carpoolers mentioned not using the Express Lanes anymore because of access inconvenience. The access inconvenience was also mentioned by previous carpoolers in HOV lanes on I-95 as one of the reasons for not using the Express Lanes. These findings underscore the importance of outreach programs during the planning process of the HOT lanes to minimize the confusion among the previous users of the HOV lanes and spreading awareness among them regarding the increased safety benefits.

In 2001 the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) was created by some of the world’s leading natural gas producing and exporting countries in order to promote their mutual interests through cooperation, in particular with regard to extracting the maximum value from their natural gas exports. My core research question is: Does cooperation among GECF member countries explain those exporters’ market power in highly import-dependent natural gas consuming countries? To determine the influence of the GECF’s cooperative actions and policies, I study the GECF’s cooperative behaviour and measure the role of (collusive) producer conduct in terms of its contribution to achieving the main GECF objective: attaining gas prices that are measurably above the cost of production and hence help producers earn significant economic rents. I employ a variety of methods from the international relations literature on cooperation and cartelisation, collective action theory and an economic measurement model in three case studies. I find that cooperation among GECF members partly explains their market power in a number of import-dependent gas markets. This is so despite the GECF’s weak degree of institutionalisation. The reasons for the GECF’s influence on effective cooperative results are: first, conducive structural conditions in many gas importing markets favouring cartelisation; second, GECF members use methods such as artificial market entry barriers (e.g. long-term term contracts negotiated in a non-transparent way) to secure their market power and third, the GECF faces less severe internal procedural challenges that plague other cartels such as collective action problems, especially cheating. Cooperation among GECF exporters hence contributes to high(er) prices of natural gas. This causes economic inefficiencies and a transfer of wealth—and political power—from gas consumers to producers. It also hinders climate change mitigation as cleanerburning gas remains too expensive to replace ‘dirty’ coal in power generation.

Magistro baigiamajame darbe išanalizuotas pasaulinės gamtinių dujų rinkos veikimo modelis, suskystintų gamtinių dujų terminalų technologijos įtaka pasaulinei gamtinių dujų rinkai bei atskiriems pasaulio regionams priklausomai nuo išvystytos dujų transportavimo infrastruktūros, sukurtas ekonominis SGDT teikiamų valstybės reguliuojamų paslaugų kainų nustatymo modelis Lietuvoje, iškeltos SGDT funkcionavimo ekonominio poveikio gamtinių dujų kainų pokyčiams Lietuvoje (izoliuotoje rinkoje) problemos bei pagal atliktus empirinio tyrimo rezultatus pateikti siūlymai rinkos dalyviams bei kitiems suinteresuotiems asmenims dėl galimų veiksmų pradėjus veikti SGDT 2014 m. gruodžio mėn. Lietuvoje. Pirmajame skyriuje sudaromas pasaulinės gamtinių dujų rinkos veikimo modelis, nagrinėjami ryšiai tarp pagrindinių jo sudedamųjų dalių (gavyba, transportavimas, vartojimas vidaus rinkoje), naujai atrandamų technologijų įtaka kiekvienai iš jų. Antroje dalyje analizuojama Lietuvos gamtinių dujų rinka ir ją supanti teisinė, ekonominė bei politinė aplinkos, aptariamos SGD galimos perspektyvos Lietuvoje. Trečioje dalyje analizuojamas autoriaus kartu su Valstybinės kainų ir energetikos kontrolės komisijos specialistais parengtas ekonominis SGDT teikiamų paslaugų kainos skaičiavimo modelis, aptariama importo kainos prognozavimo metodika, įvertinami pasirinktos metodikos trūkumai ir privalumai, aprašomi kt. metodai, kuriais remiantis ketvirtoje dalyje atliekamas empirinis tyrimas šiame darbe iškeltai... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / This Master thesis contains: presentation of global natural gas market functioning model and LNGT technology impact on this market, as well as regions according to their infrastructure of gas transportation; creation of economic model for calculating natural gas import prices forecasts and forecasts for prices of regulated LNGT services in Lithuania; presentation of economic problems of LNGT impact on natural gas prices in Lithuania (as an isolated market) and considering the results of empirical research, suggestions of possible actions for market players and third parties after Lithuanian LNGT begins its operations in December, 2014. The first part of the thesis includes examination of global natural gas market functioning, the relations between its main components (extraction, transportation, consumption in domestic markets) and influence of the new technologies for each of them. The second part analyses Lithuanian natural gas market: its legal, economic and political environment, as well as presents LNG perspectives in Lithuania. The third part consists of introducing the economic LNGT services’ price model which was created by author of this thesis in collaboration with specialists of National control commission for prices and energy, also the methodology of calculating forecasts for natural gas import prices, its advantages and disadvantages, as well as other methods which were employed to solve the main problem of the Master thesis in the last part of this work.