Urban Smart Measures and Incentives for quality of Life Enhancement
Accessibility and sustainability are important conditions for vital and resilient cities, but are under pressure especially in urban areas. Congestion, local air quality, parking; these are different challenges that, however, have in common that effective solutions require behavioural change in addition to technological innovation. This project aims to develop, test and evaluate “smart” measures to affect behaviour. The measures are smart in the first place because they offer an innovative mix of negative and positive financial incentives, thus bypassing some of the main disadvantages of pricing (notably a very limited acceptability) and of rewarding (in particular limited budgets and induced demand). The measures are also smart because they have a highly innovative technological character, not only from the conceptual viewpoint (e.g. tradable driving permits) but also from the technological perspective (e.g. linking real time automated vehicle identification to virtual market environments). These smart measures will be studied from a multidisciplinary perspective, where forces are joined among economists, psychologists, traffic engineers and policy analysts, and will be evaluated from the perspectives of effectiveness, acceptability, and efficiency - paying attention to key urban challenges such as accessibility and environmental quality. The project has a very strong rooting in the urban reality as the case studies are undertaken jointly with Amsterdam Zuidas, Rotterdam, Groningen, and the Amsterdam ArenA area.
ACADEMIC PARTNERS
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Dept. of Spatial Economics:
Prof. dr. Erik Verhoef (Principal Investigator)
Dr. Paul Koster
Dr. Jasper Knockaert
Postdoc: Yue Bao (as per 1 May, 2017)
University of Groningen, Dept. of Social Psychology:
Prof. dr. Linda Steg
Dr. Ellen van der Werff
PhD Student: Nadja Zeiske
TU Delft, Section Transport and Planning:
Prof. dr. Hans van Lint
Dr. Victor Knoop
PhD Student: Boudewijn Zwaal
TU Delft, Section Transport and Logistics, TU Delft:
Prof. dr. Bert van Wee
Dr. Eric Molin
PhD Student: Lizet Krabbenborg
University of Applied Sciences, Amsterdam, Urban Technology Research Programme:
Dr. Robert van den Hoed
Jolanda Tetteroo
Jan Dam
Milan Tanis
EXTERNAL PARTNERS
Amsterdam Zuidas / Zuidasdok:
Finn van Leeuwen
Marian Robben
Niels van den Brink
Leontien Gorter
Leendert van der Linden
Groningen:
Ingrid Bolhuis
Thomas Faber
Judith Wilke
Mirjam Wagter
Rotterdam:
Ewout Spit
Hans Stevens
Steven Butter
Amsterdam-Arena:
Maurits van Höwell
Gemeente Amsterdam:
Art van der Giessen
Carla van der Linden
PROJECT MANAGER & CONTACT PERSON:
Hadewijch van Delft
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
+31-20-5982191
RESEARCH OUTPUT
Brands, D. (2017). The lasting impact of incentives: evidence from a peak-avoidance experiment, paper presented at the ITEA Annual Conference on Transportation, Barcelona, 22 June
Verhoef, E.T. (2017). Managing congestion with tradable permits: The best of both worlds?, blog on www.spatialeconomics.nl
IN THE MEDIA
Verhoef, E.T. (2017). Experimenten met spitsrechten om files tegen te gaan (interview, RTL Nieuws, 4 September)
Verhoef, E.T. (2017). Nieuw experiment in strijd tegen files (interview, BNR Nieuwsradio, 29 August)
Verhoef, E.T. (2017). Wat als je stadsbewoners een verzilverbaar parkeerrecht geeft (interview, Trouw, 30 August)
Verhoef, E.T. (2017). Jij woensdag de parkeerplaats in ruil voor de donderdag (interview, NOS News item, 30 August)
Verhoef, E.T. (2017). VU start proef met verhandelbare parkeervergunning (interview, NOS Radio 1 Journaal, 30 August)
Verhoef, E.T. (2017). VU onderzoekt verhandelbare 'parkeerrechten' (interview, Het Parool, 30 August)
Verhoef, E.T. (2017). Nederland slibt dicht (discussie met Roger van Boxtel, NOS Nieuwsuur article, 29 July)
Verhoef, E.T. (2017). Actueel: Erik Verhoef over rekeningrijden, interview in Vuurwerk (July).
Spit, E. (2016). Spitsrijders bewust maken van keuzemogelijkheden, interview by VerDuS (in Dutch)
NEWSLETTERS
U-SMILE Newsletter July 2017
START OF THE PROJECT: 1 April, 2016
EXPECTED END OF THE PROJECT: 1 August, 2020
STATE OF AFFAIRS - MARCH, 2017 (in Dutch)
ABOUT U-SMILE
U-SMILE is a SURF (Smart Urban Regions of the Future) project, which is part of VerDuS (Verbinden van Duurzame Steden - Connecting Sustainable Cities). Within this knowledge initiative, scientific researchers work together with professionals to develop knowledge that helps address issues relating, for example, to urbanisation, the environment, mobility and transport. VerDuS is an initiative of NWO (the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research), Platform 31 and various Dutch ministries.
