Commuters’ Behavior towards Upgraded Bus Services in Greater Beirut: Role of Itinerary and Implications for Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Social Welfare and Transport Policy | Ifi Policy Brief

Policy Brief | August 2014
Commuters’ Behavior towards Upgraded Bus Services in Greater Beirut: Role of Itinerary and Implications for Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Social Welfare and Transport Policy by Ali Chalak, Hani Al-Naghi,Alexandra Irani, and Maya Abou-Zeid
​Potential greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction and social welfare gains can be achieved from upgrading the bus service in the Greater Beirut Area through a bundle of realistic bus service improvements in the short term. Such improvements will need to be comprehensive in scope and include both improvements in bus level of service attributes (access/egress time, headway, in-vehicle travel time, and number of transfers) and the provision of amenities, including air-conditioning and Wi-Fi. Moreover, such a service needs to be cheaply priced to achieve reasonably high levels of switching behavior and positive welfare gains.