In 2019, the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) funded a research study evaluating the performance measures of UDOT's expanded Incident Management Team (IMT) program. The number of IMTs patrolling Utah roadways increased from 13 to 25 between 2018 and 2020. Crash data were collected from the Utah Highway Patrol's Computer Aided Dispatch database and from the UDOT TransSuite database to compare IMT performance measures between the two years and to evaluate the benefits of the expanded IMT program. However, these data were compromised due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study collected data for 2022 using the same methodology as the Phase II study to compare IMT performance measures in 2022 with those of 2018 after traffic volumes had returned to a similar level as those of pre-pandemic levels. There were 283 and 307 incidents for the years of 2018 and 2022, respectively, that were analyzed for IMT performance measures which include response time, roadway clearance time, and incident clearance time. There were 172 and 236 incidents for the years of 2018 and 2022, respectively, that were analyzed for user impacts which were affected volume, excess travel time, and excess user costs. Results of the statistical analyses conducted on the 2018 and 2022 datasets show that IMTs can respond more quickly to incidents in a larger coverage area with significantly reduced user impacts. The expanded IMT program is also able to respond to more incidents, including those of high severity, while significantly decreasing congestion.

In infrastructure construction projects especially bridge investments, the most critical decisions that significantly affect the whole bridge LCC are the early stages decisions. Clearly, it's more beneficial to correctly choose the optimum bridge than to choose the optimum construction or repair method. The ability of a bridge to provide service over time demands appropriate maintenance by the agency. Thus the investment decision should consider not only the initial activity that creates a public good, but also all future activities that will be required to keep that investment available to the public. This research is aiming for bridge sustainability, enhance the bridge related decision making, and facilitate the usage of the bridge related feedbacks. The development of a reliable and usable computer tool for bridge LCC & LCA evaluation is the main target. Toward the main goal, many steps were fulfilled. A unique integrated Bridge LCC evaluation methodology was developed. Two systematic evaluation ways were developed, one for bridge user cost and one for the bridge aesthetical and cultural value. To put these two systematic ways in practice, two preliminary computer programs were developed for this purpose. Today and future works are focusing on developing methodology and preliminary computer tool for bridge agency cost as well as the bridge LCA evaluation. KTH unique LCC evaluation system will enable the decision makers to correctly choose the optimum bridge in the early stages decision making phases as well as any later on reparation method. / ETSI

The treatment of owner-occupied housing (OOH) is probably the most important unresolved issue in inflation measurement. How -- and whether -- it is included in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) affects inflation expectations, the measured level of real interest rates, and the behavior of governments, central banks and market participants. We show that none of the existing treatments of OOH are fit for purpose. Hence we propose a new simplified user cost method with better properties. Using a micro-level dataset, we then compare the empirical behavior of eight different treatments of OOH. Our preferred user cost approach pushes up the CPI during housing booms (by 2 percentage points or more). Our findings relate to the following important debates in macroeconomics: the behavior of the Phillips curve in the US during the global financial crisis, and the response of monetary policy to housing booms, secular stagnation, and globalization. / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

Abstract The topic of an overheated housing market, in Sweden, has been extensively discussed, not least by the media. This thesis will contribute to the debate by answering the question whether a potential price bubble exists in the Swedish housing market. Years between 1984 and 2004 are analysed using conventional metrics, which include house price-to- rent and income ratios respectively, changes in the dynamics of real house prices, as well as demographic variations. The analyse continues with the use of the imputed rent, also known as the yearly cost of ownership. Moreover the fundamental factors; interest rates, indebtedness and turnover of houses are discussed. It will be concluded that the conventional measures can be misleading. The imputed rent is a superior measure since it is the true cost of ownership and it accounts for changes in important determinants of house demand, mainly the interest rate. The answer to the title of this paper is; no, house prices (in 2004) in Sweden did not appear to be particularly overvalued, neither when compared to yearly rents in the tenancy market, disposable incomes, nor when low levels of interest rates are taken into account. However, this does not rule out that house prices cannot fall in the near future. / Sammanfattning Denna kandidatuppsats behandlar ämnet om en möjlig husprisbubbla i Sverige. Sedvanliga tekniker som används vid analysering av prisbubblor innefattar användandet av proportionen mellan huspriser och hyror samt disponibla inkomster. Även dynamiken i reella huspriser och demografiska förändringar utvärderas. I denna analys jämförs åren mellan 1984 och 2004 genom att använda “imputed rent”, vilken representerar den årliga kostnaden av ägande. Även fundamentala faktorer som räntan, skuldsättningen samt omsättningen av hus undersöks. Den slutsats som uppsatsen resulterar i understryker att de sedvanliga bruken kan vara vilseledande och att ”imputed rent” är en bättre teknik. Detta eftersom ”imputed rent” representerar den verkliga kostnaden av ägande samt inbegriper viktiga avgörande faktorer, som räntan. Därför är svaret på titeln; nej, huspriserna (år 2004) i Sverige förefaller sig inte vara särskilt övervärderade, när de jämförs med årliga hyror av likvärdiga hyresrättslägenheter och disponibla inkomster, samt när hänsyn tas till den låga räntan. Detta utesluter dock inte en framtida nedgång av huspriserna.

<p>Abstract</p><p>The topic of an overheated housing market, in Sweden, has been extensively discussed, not least by the media. This thesis will contribute to the debate by answering the question whether a potential price bubble exists in the Swedish housing market. Years between 1984 and 2004 are analysed using conventional metrics, which include house price-to- rent and income ratios respectively, changes in the dynamics of real house prices, as well as demographic variations. The analyse continues with the use of the imputed rent, also known as the yearly cost of ownership. Moreover the fundamental factors; interest rates, indebtedness and turnover of houses are discussed.</p><p>It will be concluded that the conventional measures can be misleading. The imputed rent is a superior measure since it is the true cost of ownership and it accounts for changes in important determinants of house demand, mainly the interest rate. The answer to the title of this paper is; no, house prices (in 2004) in Sweden did not appear to be particularly overvalued, neither when compared to yearly rents in the tenancy market, disposable incomes, nor when low levels of interest rates are taken into account. However, this does not rule out that house prices cannot fall in the near future.</p> / <p>Sammanfattning</p><p>Denna kandidatuppsats behandlar ämnet om en möjlig husprisbubbla i Sverige. Sedvanliga tekniker som används vid analysering av prisbubblor innefattar användandet av proportionen mellan huspriser och hyror samt disponibla inkomster. Även dynamiken i reella huspriser och demografiska förändringar utvärderas.</p><p>I denna analys jämförs åren mellan 1984 och 2004 genom att använda “imputed rent”, vilken representerar den årliga kostnaden av ägande. Även fundamentala faktorer som räntan, skuldsättningen samt omsättningen av hus undersöks. Den slutsats som uppsatsen resulterar i understryker att de sedvanliga bruken kan vara vilseledande och att ”imputed rent” är en bättre teknik. Detta eftersom ”imputed rent” representerar den verkliga kostnaden av ägande samt inbegriper viktiga avgörande faktorer, som räntan. Därför är svaret på titeln; nej, huspriserna (år 2004) i Sverige förefaller sig inte vara särskilt övervärderade, när de jämförs med årliga hyror av likvärdiga hyresrättslägenheter och disponibla inkomster, samt när hänsyn tas till den låga räntan. Detta utesluter dock inte en framtida nedgång av huspriserna.</p>

傳統財務理論中均假設市場為效率市場，然而不動產市場並非效率市場，投資者對於市場資訊之反應並非完全理性。若投資者忽視自身擁有之資訊，選擇追隨其他人的投資決策，將使投資人間存在相互牽制之行為，因而產生行為財務學中之「從眾行為」，其決策結果將無法完全反應市場資訊，並造成投資人集體買進、賣出之行為，使市場價格與交易量存在不正常之波動。由於台灣不動產市場長期以來存在有價格漲幅波動超越合理範圍之現象，因此本研究探討台灣不動產市場是否存有從眾行為，使得投資人具有非理性的投資傾向。 有鑑於過去關於從眾行為之研究仍以股票市場中報酬率或交易量驗證為主，對於台灣運用交易量進行不動產市場之從眾行為驗證則付之闕如，而從眾行為對於不動產市場之影響，首先將反映於交易量之波動，因此本研究運用自我迴歸分配落遲模型對於台灣不動產市場是否存在從眾行為進行驗證，並比較不動產報酬率波動不同之交易市場，其從眾行為存在情形之異同。 模型結果顯示台灣三大都會區（臺北市、臺中市與高雄市）與臺北市分區（分為市中心、郊區與郊外）中，僅臺北市整體與臺北市分區之住宅市場明顯存在從眾行為現象。結果顯示當該住宅市場存在從眾行為時，當期交易量將受到當期持有成本與前期市場報酬率之影響。此外，交易量除受從眾行為之影響外，尚受到經濟成長率、營建類股股價指數、物價指數租金年增率、營造工程物價指數等之正向影響，而購屋貸款利率與通貨膨脹則和交易量呈反向變動現象。 本研究以探討從眾行為、交易量與總體經濟因素之關連性，進一步釐清影響住宅市場交易量波動之因素，使購屋者於決策時參考前期市場交易情形能更加理性，避免盲目跟隨下的從眾行為產生。 / Base on the Efficient Market Hypothesis, the traditional financial theory assumes the market is efficient. However, the real estate market is not. For this reason, investors could not react to market information entirely. If investors ignore their own information, they may choose to follow other peoples’ investment decisions. Therefore, this situation will lead to herding behavior of behavioral finance that may cause price volatility and unusual transactions. On account of the real estate market exists unreasonable price fluctuations for a long time in Taiwan, this thesis examines whether the herding behavior exists in Taiwan real estate market or not. Although many researchers study the herding behavior in the stock market by using the transactions and the returns on investment, few attempts have been made to discuss the herding behavior in Taiwan housing market by using the housing transactions. Hence, this study examines the herding behavior in Taiwan housing market by establishing the Auto-regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model with housing transaction data. Results found the herding behavior of real estate market do exist in the whole Taipei city and the three region of Taipei city (downtown, suburb and outskirt). And it shows the transactions in the housing market with herding behavior may be affected by user cost of housing and pre-market returns. Furthermore, the study finds some macroeconomic factors affecting the housing transactions positivity, such as economic growth rate, construction stocks index, consumer price index of house renting and consumer price index of construction engineering. On the contrary, loan interest rate of housing and consumer price index has negative influence. To conclude, this study aims to examine the influential factors on the volatility of housing transactions though clarifying the relationship between the herding behavior, the transactions in housing market and the macroeconomic factors. It may help investors follow other peoples’ investment decisions more reasonable, and avoid blind herding behavior in real estate markets.

This paper presents a method to value the residential real estate portfolio of an economy by summarizing the future discounted values of the net operating income. The motivation for this choice of subject is the concern for a house bubble in Sweden due to the double-digit rise in housing prices which the economy has experienced during many consecutive years. However, the method is general and can be applied anywhere where relevant statistics is available. The challenge to use an income approach to residential real estate valuation lies in the fact that there is no obvious net operating income, as the owner and the end user is in many cases the same person. To solve this challenge, we determine the maximum possible net operating income by taking the households’ disposable incomes and subtracting their expenses. This will be a fictional value for the maximum possible net operating income or the imputed income for real estate owners. When this fictional net operating income is compared to the mean prices of properties, a maximum potential yield to capital invested in residential real estate is extracted. The current number for this maximal potential yield on the Stockholm market seem to be 6,4 percent, 2017. The main contribution of this paper to the science of economy is that it presents a way to use classical fundamental valuation methods to evaluate the price level of residential real estate, that, due to lack of tangible net operating income is not as straightforward as the valuation of the commercial real estate market.

Submitted by Rodson Heringer (rodsonheringer@gmail.com) on 2014-08-19T13:35:04Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Rodson Heringer_vfinal.pdf: 585514 bytes, checksum: 47c7b742f2da43456fabe8d31c914054 (MD5) / Rejected by JOANA MARTORINI (joana.martorini@fgv.br), reason: As paginas continuam numeradas. A numeração das paginas deverão ser contadas a partir do índice. on 2014-08-19T13:40:45Z (GMT) / Submitted by Rodson Heringer (rodsonheringer@gmail.com) on 2014-08-19T14:14:49Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Rodson Heringer_vfinal.pdf: 586286 bytes, checksum: d42505429c5f0cbf765dd2d32c6cb066 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by JOANA MARTORINI (joana.martorini@fgv.br) on 2014-08-19T14:15:57Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Rodson Heringer_vfinal.pdf: 586286 bytes, checksum: d42505429c5f0cbf765dd2d32c6cb066 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-08-19T16:15:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Rodson Heringer_vfinal.pdf: 586286 bytes, checksum: d42505429c5f0cbf765dd2d32c6cb066 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-08-04 / Este trabalho analisa a variação da taxa de aluguel e do custo de moradia nas cidades de São Paulo e Rio de Janeiro para o período de Janeiro de 2008 a Janeiro de 2014 utilizando uma abordagem quantitativa com base na expectativa de longo prazo da taxa de juros reais, na expectativa de inflação e na valorização do preço dos imóveis em uma janela de 1 ano. Os resultados indicam que a expectativa de longo prazo da taxa de juros reais tem um impacto relevante na variação da taxa de aluguel durante o período abordado, bem como a expectativa de inflação, mas em magnitude menor, enquanto a valorização passada de 1 ano não tem poder explicativo sobre a taxa de aluguel. / We examine the variation of the rent-to-price ratio in the cities of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro from January 2008 to January 2014 using a quantitative approach based on the expected long-term real interest rate, the expected inflation rate and the price appreciation of real estate during the last twelve months. The results indicate that the expected long-term real interest rate has a significant impact on the variation of the rent-to-price ratio during the period covered, as well as the expected inflation, but to a lesser degree, while the past price appreciation has no explanatory power.

The greater competition and concentration in South Africa's financial sector has put South African banks under more constraints and led to questioning of their present performance. With a greater demand for financial services and more complains about the low quality of financial services and charges being too high, there has been increasing debate about how efficient South African banks really are. This study discusses performance evaluation, the traditional financial and non-financial measures used, and their limitations. The concept of bank efficiency is also briefly discussed, including scale efficiency, scope efficiency, X-efficiency, cost efficiency, standard profit efficiency, alternative profit efficiency and the risk component of bank efficiency. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was chosen as the most appropriate method to estimate the scale efficiency and technical efficiency of 37 districts (and 10 provinces) of one of the largest banks in South Africa. 'DEA involves solving linear programming problems that generate a non-parametric, piecewise linear convex frontier that envelops the input and output data relative to which cost is minimized' (Fare et al., 1985b:193). The intermediation approach was used incorporating both the input- and output-orientated approach under variable returns to scale. The analyses indicated that 19 districts out of the 37 districts were not at least once fully technically efficient during the 22 months (input- and output-orientated). The same results were found with regard to scale efficiency: 17 districts out of the 37 districts were not at least once fully scale efficient (input-orientated) and 19 districts out of the 37 districts were not at least once fully scale efficient (output-orientated), during the 22 months. Synergy was found in 6 provinces out of the 10 provinces (input- and output-orientated). / Thesis (M.Com. (Risk Management))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

The greater competition and concentration in South Africa's financial sector has put South African banks under more constraints and led to questioning of their present performance. With a greater demand for financial services and more complains about the low quality of financial services and charges being too high, there has been increasing debate about how efficient South African banks really are. This study discusses performance evaluation, the traditional financial and non-financial measures used, and their limitations. The concept of bank efficiency is also briefly discussed, including scale efficiency, scope efficiency, X-efficiency, cost efficiency, standard profit efficiency, alternative profit efficiency and the risk component of bank efficiency. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was chosen as the most appropriate method to estimate the scale efficiency and technical efficiency of 37 districts (and 10 provinces) of one of the largest banks in South Africa. 'DEA involves solving linear programming problems that generate a non-parametric, piecewise linear convex frontier that envelops the input and output data relative to which cost is minimized' (Fare et al., 1985b:193). The intermediation approach was used incorporating both the input- and output-orientated approach under variable returns to scale. The analyses indicated that 19 districts out of the 37 districts were not at least once fully technically efficient during the 22 months (input- and output-orientated). The same results were found with regard to scale efficiency: 17 districts out of the 37 districts were not at least once fully scale efficient (input-orientated) and 19 districts out of the 37 districts were not at least once fully scale efficient (output-orientated), during the 22 months. Synergy was found in 6 provinces out of the 10 provinces (input- and output-orientated). / Thesis (M.Com. (Risk Management))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.