International Project 【Switzerland】
Institute for Transport Planning and Systems, ETH Zürich
Ryosuke Abe　[D3]
(Graduate School of Engineering,Department of Civil Engineering)

The joint research is a study on the long-term relationship between travel time changes and the investments in transportation infrastructures. This will be a part of the topics in my PhD thesis. This report provides a brief introduction of the joint research, followed by the lessons learned from the international project and my message to other GSDM students.


Joint research
Metz (2008) argued that travel time savings by improvements to transportation infrastructures could be marginal in the long-run, claiming that travel time savings were at best transient phenomenon in the short-run. This is in contrast to the general assumption that the investment in transportation infrastructures reduces the travel time expenditures of individuals.
This study empirically estimated the long-run travel time savings by the investment in transportation infrastructures. First, this study developed a model for the individual travel time spent with the 30-year dataset of cohorts for the individuals living in urban areas of Switzerland. The municipality-level accessibility constructed using data for the supply of the transportation network was chosen as the variable representing the transportation supply.
The results showed a higher car-accessibility where an individual starts to travel significantly decreased travel time of the trip in the model estimated with the OLS approach. Meanwhile, it had no significant effects after accounting for the potential endogeneity of the car-accessibility. Additionally, the public-transit accessibility had no significant effects on the travel time spent in any case. Thus, generally, we cannot still conclude whether or not there were actual travel time savings caused by the investment in transportation infrastructures in the long-run, even using an ideal approach to the measurement of travel time savings.


Lessons learned and the message
I learned much from life in Switzerland, particularly on transportation. Switzerland was a good country to learn what a well-sophisticated transportation network is. The public transportation in Swiss cities was well accessible with a good walking environment. Additionally, as Switzerland has a long history of tourism promotion, it has a dense inter-city public-transit network that reaches the top of mountains. During my occasional trips to the non-urban and mountain areas, I found the transportation network was well-maintained as public-transits provide relatively frequent services even in non-urban areas. These experiences will contribute to my future work in the field of transportation planning.
I did not expect many difficulties as I received the kind support from many at the institute, but a possible message to fellow GSDM students could be in relation to accommodation. As I presume this also happens in many European cities, the housing supply in Swiss cities might not be large compared to its demand, which possibly leads to a high rent. I first searched my accommodation on the website of the university’s housing office. By registering the account on this site, we can see the advertisements of available accommodation. We can directly contact the landlords by e-mail. It should be noted that they might not accept a short-term contract. I chose a flat provided by a company (the list is available on that website), where the rent is typically higher.


Metz, D. The Myth of Travel Time Saving. Transport Reviews, Vol. 28 2008, pp. 321–336.