Sweden has defined a national transportation objective that aim at making public transportation the most attractive option in more situations. One way of making public transportation mote attractive is to ensure that it is rapid. BRT stands for Bus Rapid Transit and is concept that ensures speed and reliability of public transportation buses through combined priority measures. However, accessibility measures for urban buses are often compromised and not prioritized politically. If the travel time saved for these measures can be estimated, then they are more likely to be implemented. Two components that have been defined for Swedish BRT were tested on a proposed BRT corridor in the city of Södertälje through microsimulation tool VISSIM. The two components that were tested was boarding and alighting through all doors and bus lanes, both median and curb side. The components were tested on a 3,2 km long corridor using the current actuated traffic signal that was currently in use. To test the measures a sensitivity analysis was carried out with three different levels of traffic and five different passenger levels for boarding and alighting. Only the impact on travel time for the bus was studied. The travel time savings from the measure boarding and alighting through all doors was 1 to 3 percent but only significant for the higher levels of boarding with an average of 12 to 15 boarding passengers per stop. The travel time savings of the curb side bus lane with actuated traffic signals was estimated to be up to 5 percent and for the median bus lane up to 11 percent in congested traffic conditions.

Près de deux décennies, après la libéralisation de l’économie tunisienne, les disparités régionales se sont fortement accentuées. Les amples écarts de développement entre les régions du littoral et de l’intérieur sont révélateurs d’une grande hétérogénéité en termes de niveaux de revenus, de croissance, de chômage, de répartition entre activités à forte et à faible productivités et de pauvreté. Si les régions du littoral font partie de l’axe de compétitivité et constituent le centre des branches phares de l’industrie tunisienne, les autres régions de l’intérieur disposent de moins de compétences stratégiques et affichent des performances moyennes, voire même faibles. Aucun processus de convergence régionale n’est enclenché. L’objet de la thèse est de quantifier et d’appréhender les impacts macroéconomiques et microéconomiques de sept réformes de politiques économiques susceptibles de réduire les disparités régionales, dans le cadre d’une approche macro-micro. Approche qui conduit inévitablement à privilégier un cadre d’analyse qui se compose de deux modèles reliés: un modèle d’équilibre général dynamique et multirégional et un modèle de micro simulation. L’implémentation de ces deux modèles a permis de réaliser un exercice de projection et un autre de simulation. Le premier exercice a étudié l’évolution future de l’économie tunisienne, en absence de toutes réformes économiques et/ou choc exogène. Les résultats montrent que le clivage littoral-intérieur devrait s’accentuer si des mesures de correction ne sont pas mises en œuvre. Les résultats de simulation suggèrent qu’une politique de libéralisation commerciale bénéficie plus aux régions du littoral. Pour stimuler la croissance des régions de l’intérieur, il est préférable d’entreprendre des politiques de discrimination positive qui visent à augmenter leurs niveaux d’investissements public et surtout privé. Par ailleurs, la réduction de l’écart de performance économique entre le littoral et l’intérieur du pays ne peut se faire rapidement qu’au moyen d’un changement technologique important dans les régions de l’intérieur. Tous les scénarios envisagés dans ce travail rejettent la nécessité d’un arbitrage entre croissance et pauvreté régionales et confirment donc les possibilités d’une croissance pro-pauvre. / Almost two decades after the liberalization of the Tunisian economy, regional disparities have been accentuated severely and are expected to grow further. The existing gap between the coastal regions and those inland is showing high inequality in terms of levels of income, growth, unemployment, productivity and poverty. The industry in the littoral regions remains the most competitive leading the Tunisian industry, while other regions in the interior lag behind with fewer strategic competences and skills and medium or even low performance. Hence, the process of regional convergence has been broken rather than achieved. The purpose of this research is to assess and quantify the macroeconomic and microeconomic impacts of seven economic policies which aiming to reduce regional disparities in Tunisia. For that purpose, we will use a micro-macro based approach with two interconnected models: A multiregional dynamic general-equilibrium model and a micro-simulation model. The implementation of these two models has enabled a projection exercise and simulation one. The first exercise studied the future evolution of the Tunisian economy in its national and regional dimensions without any economic and / or exogenous shock reforms. The results show that the littoral-internal cleavage is expected to increase if corrective measures will not be implemented. Simulation results show that trade liberalization policy benefits more to coastal regions. However, to stimulate growth performance on behalf of inland regions, positive discrimination action policies, as public and especially private investment increase, will be necessary. Moreover, reducing the economic gap performance between the coast and the interior can be done quickly through a major technological change for regions in the interior. All scenarios in this study reject the possibility of trade-off between growth and regional poverty and thus confirm the potential for pro-poor growth.

La littérature concernant les effets de la mondialisation sur la pauvreté et les inégalités dans les PED est abondante. Cependant, aucun consensus n'émerge à propos de la nature de cette relation, car l'impact de la mondialisation est spécifique à chaque PED. Ainsi, la structure économique du pays étudié doit être prise en considération dans l'analyse des effets de la mondialisation. L'intérêt de la présente étude se porte sur l'Afrique du Sud. Il s'agit d'un pays particulièrement intéressant de par son histoire et son récent engagement en faveur de la mondialisation. Depuis la fin du régime d'apartheid, les politiques de libéralisation commerciale ont figuré en bonne place dans l'agenda politique. Dans un pays où la pauvreté et les inégalités sont profondes, il s'avère particulièrement important d'examiner l'impact microéconomique des politiques commerciales. Dans cette thèse, une approche séquentielle est employée afin de combiner un modèle d'équilibre général calculable avec un modèle de micro-simulation. L'objectif est de construire un instrument efficace dans l'évaluation des effets des politiques commerciales sur les ménages sud-africains. Cette approche novatrice nous permet d'analyser les impacts microéconomiques (sur la pauvreté et les inégalités) d'une politique macroéconomique (la libéralisation commerciale). Les résultats suggèrent que la libéralisation commerciale permet une réduction de la pauvreté, principalement suite à l'expansion de l'emploi formel. Cependant, l'amplitude des effets est relativement limitée.

Tax systems of both Germany and other European countries are often subject to tax reforms. On the one hand, tax systems should be economically efficient, i.e., they should not involve welfare losses or lead to distortions of decisions. On the other hand, tax reforms could only be implemented if budget consequences are acceptable for the fiscal authority, i.e., potential revenue losses have to be either moderate or compensable by countermeasures. Revenue consequences of possible tax reforms are therefore of crucial importance for the fiscal authority. In addition to aggregate revenue impacts, redistribution effects on the level of single companies are relevant for the acceptance and the enforcement of tax reforms. Redistribution effects are particularly relevant if certain companies or industries should be supported or not additionally strained. Against this background, in the first three papers of my cumulative dissertation I analyze revenue and redistribution effects of two reform scenarios that are currently under political discussion. Revenue impacts of reforming inter-period loss-offset provisions in Germany are analyzed in the first paper using a prototypical dynamic microsimulation model. This prototypical model is developed further into the microsimulation model ASSERT (paper 2), which is applied in paper 3 to estimate revenue consequences of a reform regarding the German group taxation regulations. Because tax reforms in general and especially the analyzed reform scenarios do not only affect tax revenue of the states involved but also the (investment) behavior of the companies concerned, it is important to consider so-called second-round effects when quantifying revenue consequences of tax reforms. In the fourth paper I empirically identify companies' behavioral responses and analyze the impact of tax depreciation on the level of investment. I use cross-section and panel data analyses and differentiate between companies that have and companies that do not have a tax loss carry-forward. In addition to the effects of tax depreciation on investment in the whole sample I estimate size-specific investment impacts by dividing the sample into large, medium-sized and small corporations. The estimated behavioral responses (and also other responses to tax reforms) should in the future be implemented in the microsimulation model ASSERT.

This thesis consists of five scientific articles oriented towards capacity. Managing capacity constraints with associated delays is a big issue at new design as well as at trimming existing traffic facilities. In larger Swedish cities these challenges have become more and more important as a result of growing traffic demand due to rapid population increase.Models for estimating capacity and delay are available, but not many are calibrated for Swedish conditions due to the high effort required. This thesis documents development and calibration of new models for motorway links, entry and exit lanes and weaving areas and an developed space-time model with the ability to calculate queue length, delay, etc.The first article is focused on identifying weaknesses in the former Swedish capacity method for motorways, and development of new models overcoming these shortcomings. The development includes new models for jam density at queue, capacity in weaving areas and fundamental flow-density relationships for 15 different highway types for inclusion in the new Swedish capacity manual.The second article describes the development of a Swedish motorway space-time model to estimate travel times and queues in oversaturated conditions based on the American FREEVAL model in Highway Capacity Manual 2010 (HCM 2010). Calibration and validation of the model has been performed with data from the Motorway Control System (MCS) in Stockholm. A good correspondence was obtained for most cases, but further calibration and validation efforts are required for entry and exit lanes.The third article describes further development of the intersection model in the Swedish microscopic model “Rural Traffic Simulator (RuTSim). This is a continuation of the work documented in the author’s licentiate thesis published in 2002. The development focused on simulation of intersections using a new concept on lane use not included in the old RuTSim model. The model describes Swedish rural intersections with flared approaches providing a non-discreet lane use due to vehicle types in queue. New data for calibration and validation data was also generated. The validation results showed good correspondence between simulated and empirical delay results. The new intersection model is now implemented in RuTSim, providing new tools for estimation of capacity, delay and queue length already included in Swedish guidelines and capacity manuals/software (Capcal).The fourth article describes the development of a new capacity model for roadwork zones. Focus is on the resulting capacity of one lane due to several reduction factors. These factors include impacts of closed road shoulders, reduction of number of lanes, diversion of traffic to the opposite carriageway, commuting traffic, length of work zone, lane width and type of road work. The first two correction factors were successfully validated in a full-scale test on the E6 motorway in Gothenburg.The fifth article describes development and implementation of a new harmonization algorithm for MCS systems on motorways designed to increase bottleneck capacity and throughput. Two different models were developed, one of which was implemented in the existing MCS system on E4 Södertäljevägen south of Stockholm. Full-scale trials were carried out with a model based on trigger levels in terms of flow. The second model based on the difference in the variance of speed during two following time periods was tested offline also with very good results. / <p>QC 20160429</p>

Potentielle Steuerreformen befinden sich regelmäßig auf der Tagesordnung der politischen Diskussion in Deutschland und Europa. Die erwarteten Aufkommens- und Verteilungswirkungen von Steuerreformen werden von Simulationsmodellen quantifiziert, die damit der politischen Entscheidungsunterstützung dienen. Bisherige Simulationsmodelle basieren auf makroökonomischen oder unternehmensindividuellen Daten und führen die Analyse für einen historischen Zeitraum oder für einzelne Länder durch. Vor diesem Hintergrund stellen die Beiträge dieser Dissertation das Design, die Implementierung und die Anwendung des Mikro-Simulationsmodells ASSERT dar. ASSERT basiert auf unkonsolidierten Jahresabschlussdaten sowie Beteiligungsbeziehungen europäischer Unternehmen, länderspezifischen Parameterdaten und berücksichtigt die nationalen Besteuerungsvorschriften der europäischen Länder. Die Simulation der zukünftigen Unternehmensentwicklung erlaubt eine vorwärtsgerichtete Analyse für mögliche nationale oder europäische Steuerreformszenarien unter Unsicherheit. Dabei werden Auswirkungen auf inländische und ausländische verbundene Unternehmen berücksichtigt. Das formale und steuerliche Design von ASSERT wird in Beitrag 1 erläutert. Die Anwendung von ASSERT erfolgt dann in Beitrag 2. Ziel dieses Beitrags ist die Quantifizierung der Auswirkungen möglicher Reformszenarien zur alternativen Besteuerung der ertragsteuerlichen Organschaft in Deutschland. Die Präsentation des Entwicklungsprozesses, des optimierten IT-Designs und der Implementierung ist Gegenstand von Beitrag 3. Zunächst wurde ASSERT für eine zeitnahe Realisierung funktionenorientiert konzipiert und realisiert. Nachfolgend wurde ein ganzheitliches Datenbankdesign und ein integriertes Programm-Paket erstellt, um Verbesserungen der Performance und der Wartbarkeit zu erzielen. Da zu erwarten ist, dass unternehmerische Entscheidungen durch Steuerreformen beeinflusst werden, werden in Beitrag 4 Verhaltensreaktionen in Bezug auf die Finanzierungsstruktur berücksichtigt und die resultierenden Zweitrundeneffekte für verschiedene Szenarien ermittelt. Die Modellierung der Zielkapitalstruktur erfolgt in Abhängigkeit des tariflichen, des marginalen Steuersatzes und weiteren Konzerncharakteristika.

Près de deux décennies, après la libéralisation de l'économie tunisienne, les disparités régionales se sont fortement accentuées. Les amples écarts de développement entre les régions du littoral et de l'intérieur sont révélateurs d'une grande hétérogénéité en termes de niveaux de revenus, de croissance, de chômage, de répartition entre activités à forte et à faible productivités et de pauvreté. Si les régions du littoral font partie de l'axe de compétitivité et constituent le centre des branches phares de l'industrie tunisienne, les autres régions de l'intérieur disposent de moins de compétences stratégiques et affichent des performances moyennes, voire même faibles. Aucun processus de convergence régionale n'est enclenché. L'objet de la thèse est de quantifier et d'appréhender les impacts macroéconomiques et microéconomiques de sept réformes de politiques économiques susceptibles de réduire les disparités régionales, dans le cadre d'une approche macro-micro. Approche qui conduit inévitablement à privilégier un cadre d'analyse qui se compose de deux modèles reliés: un modèle d'équilibre général dynamique et multirégional et un modèle de micro simulation. L'implémentation de ces deux modèles a permis de réaliser un exercice de projection et un autre de simulation. Le premier exercice a étudié l'évolution future de l'économie tunisienne, en absence de toutes réformes économiques et/ou choc exogène. Les résultats montrent que le clivage littoral-intérieur devrait s'accentuer si des mesures de correction ne sont pas mises en œuvre. Les résultats de simulation suggèrent qu'une politique de libéralisation commerciale bénéficie plus aux régions du littoral. Pour stimuler la croissance des régions de l'intérieur, il est préférable d'entreprendre des politiques de discrimination positive qui visent à augmenter leurs niveaux d'investissements public et surtout privé. Par ailleurs, la réduction de l'écart de performance économique entre le littoral et l'intérieur du pays ne peut se faire rapidement qu'au moyen d'un changement technologique important dans les régions de l'intérieur. Tous les scénarios envisagés dans ce travail rejettent la nécessité d'un arbitrage entre croissance et pauvreté régionales et confirment donc les possibilités d'une croissance pro-pauvre.

In order to investigate what place WiFi fingerprinting has in pedestrian-oriented planning, an interview study was carried out by conducting 12 semi-structured interviews with different actors working in pedestrian-related fields. The actors represent both the private and the public sector, and work in various geographical scales. The interviews investigate what pedestrian-related questions actors work with, what data their work requires and what methods they use to gather the data. For each of these three categories, topics that appeared in over half of the interviews were analyzed qualitatively. With this analysis, relevant applications of WiFi fingerprinting in pedestrian-oriented planning today are identified, namely determining capacity and dimensions, determining the spatial layout of small-scale environments, measuring congestion and providing validation data. The data needs not filled by WiFi fingerprinting are found to be spot-specific information suitable for qualitative analysis, visitor composition and network level flows and movements. Lastly, WiFi fingerprinting can be combined with other data sources to complement its drawbacks as a piece in a puzzle, such as using spot visits to better understand the reasons behind the flow data.

This thesis project presents a traffic micro simulation study that investigates the state-of-the-art in traffic management "Green Light Optimal Speed Advisory (GLOSA)" for vehicles in a smart city. GLOSA utilizes infrastructure and vehicles communication through using current signal plan settings and updated vehicular information in order to influence the intersection approach speeds. The project involves simulations for a mixed traffic environment of conventional and automated vehicles both connected to the intersection control and guided by a speed advisory traffic management system. Among the project goals is to assess the effects on traffic performance when human drivers comply to the speed advice. The GLOSA management approach is also accessed for its potential to improve traffic efficiency in a full market penetration of connected automated vehicles with enhanced capabilities such as having shorter time head ways.

This Master's Thesis deals with the possibilities for the practical usage of traffic simulations as tools for seeking solutions to various kinds of problems such as road traffic flow, the environmental impact of traffic, etc. It contains a description of the basic terms in the area of traffic simulation models, advantages of their practical usage, and furthermore, it describes the basic general methods of and attitudes to the most commonly used traffic simulations. In the second part, the analysis and the design of an original micro traffic simulator are included. Finally, the traffic simulator is implemented and tested on a real traffic situation.