Project Progress Report of Group 4
Title: Study of Pricing on Highway Contributes to Consumer’s Utility Maximization
Project Report代写 We are working on testing the safety level of ETR 407 and Hwy 401 by obtaining the historical number of accidences happened in the past.
Introduction
Our main purpose was to construct a model that is persuasive to let people drive on ETR 407 in terms of better road condition, shorter distance and travel time. To sufficiently support the point we made, we collected data from Statistics Canada, Natural Resource Canada, Ministry of Transportation and ETR 407 data usages, in order to make assumption for fuel cost per trip, opportunity cost and make comparison between ETR 407 and Hwy 401.Project Report代写
For convenient purpose, we set up two destinations with 4 routes started from Peterborough, which are Peterborough to Scarborough Town Center (STC) and Peterborough to YYZ terminal 3. Currently, we are interested in road condition regarding to safety on both ETR 407 and Hwy 401, and we are working on to see the impact on driver’s decision. Meanwhile, we will test the maximum speed limit on ETR 407 and Hwy 401 although we know the official speed limit is 100km/hr, it is not realistic for some drivers.Project Report代写
By gathering all these information, we will be able to finish the model and prove that ETR 407 is maximizing driver’s utility.Project Report代写
Accomplishments
- Collected historical data from Statistics Canada for net sales of gasoline in Ontario, cleared about how many litres of gasoline were sold.
- Sorted out and finalized the average retail price for regular gasoline from January 2016 to up-to-date.
- Obtained traffic volume from Ministry of Transportation, file named “Provincial Highways Traffic Volume 1988 – 2016”, determined the section of routes we assumed in the model.
- Obtained data from ETR 407 usage statistics and got the specified annual details; decided to use fee details to construct equations needed in the model.
- Destination confirmed: STC with two routes, the first one is 114km driving through ETR 407 and the second one is 117km through Hwy 401W; YYZ terminal 3 with two routes, the first one is 144km on ETR 407 and 148km via Hwy 401W.Project Report代写
Tasks and Goals
- We are working on testing the safety level of ETR 407 and Hwy 401 by obtaining the historical number of accidences happened in the past. By Nov. 22, we should be able to generate sufficient data and see the comparison between two highways.
- We will need to modify the section of the road in order to more accurately calculate the speed, which means we will shorten the distance if necessary. Calculation will be done soon we finish re-reading through the “Provincial Highway Traffic Volume 1988 – 2016”. Estimated time for this job is by Nov. 20.
- We will be able to finish the model and the rest of the work by Nov. 25 as we do not have much left. We have gotten most dataset we needed to sufficient support our model.
Roadblocks
- We cannot tell the reason why travelling time from Peterborough to STC via Hwy 401 sometimes is shorter than driving on ETR 407, although we know ETR 407 offers a shorter driving distance. However, trip to YYZ terminal 3 is precisely fitting the assumption we made in the model.
- We may not be able to fulfillthe purpose of testing opportunity cost of driving on Hwy 401 because we could not get a full 5-year average retail price of regular gasoline. We will need to adjust the time constraint if we insist on the testing.Project Report代写
Challenges
- Collecting data is not simple and easy, we cannot guarantee we will get data for every single variable we need to use in the model. We have to modify and determine if we the variable is contributing to our purpose whenever we get stuck. For example, PTBO to STC was supposed to have three routes initially but we reduced one because the third one requires data of Hwy 412. Adding the third route is not significantly helping us to compare and contrast the advantage of using ETR 407.
- We are also interested in finding the difference of speed limit in terms of weather, season and some external factors that may cause distraction. However, data collection of these factors may take time. We are getting clear that the realistic maximal speed is caused by more factors than we thought.
- We have to divide the section of ETR 407 by fee details and compare to Hwy 401. We cannot simply assume we are on toll for the whole trip, in this case, carefully reading the map and identify the section of road is important. We did not figure out the correct section in the beginning, thus we used an incorrect traffic volume as reference.Project Report代写
Lessons learned
- Fuel consumption tends to increase as time goes by, and retail price of gasoline is becoming more expensive.
- Gas price does not hugely affect the number of trips, we noticed that traffic volume is increasing when we tested the interactive effect between gas price and traffic volume.
- Model needs qualified data to support, and we need to identify and modify dataset when we get them, we cannot simply use them to construct the model.
- Although ETR 407 offers a shortcut to those destinations, we may not know the driver’s preference. We can prove that express toll highway in a way, is benefit driver by showing them time saved, less fuel consumption or better road condition; however, we cannot change one’s preference.Project Report代写
Comment
We believe we are working on the right track and we will get it done on time. As mentioned above, time constraint may change because we do not have enough data. Otherwise, we got historical data for sales of gasoline, traffic volume of public owned highway, statistics data usage of ETR 407, fee details of ETR 407 and we are in the process of getting data of accidence on both highways. Project Report代写
您必须登录才能发表评论。