Specification and interpretation issues in behavioural models used for environmental assessment
Specification and interpretation issues in behavioural models used for environmental assessment
Abstract
While the environmental damage caused by transport is the direct result of engineering design – the use of mechanical vehicles largely propelled by fossil fuels – it is human behaviour that influences the way transport is used and the infrastructure that is provided. There has been a tendency in the past to seek technological solutions to environmental problems, and there is clearly a continuing role for policies that foster this approach. But more recently, over the past 20 years or so, there has been a recognition that changing the ways transport is used, as well as the physical nature of the hardware, is at least as important. In both cases, however, there is a need to understand the responses of society to alternative policies. This entails, at one level, insights into the likely reaction of people to alternative policies – basically good forecasting models. At another level, that of project and policy evaluation, there is a need to understand the values that society puts on environmental improvement.
Type
Journal Article
Type of thesis
Series
Citation
Hess, S. & Scarpa, R. (2010). Specification and interpretation issues in behavioural models used for environmental assessment. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, 15(7), 367-369.
Date
2010
Publisher
Elsevier