Price-based and motivation-based policies for sustainable urban commuting: an agent-based model

Abstract The paper aims to assess the potential impact of different public policies for transport sustainability on the commuters' mode choice in an urban area and on the associated PM emissions. An agent-based model simulates the choice of the transport means by a sample of Italian urban commuters according to the means relative price, social influence dynamics, psychological dimensions, and the policy intensity. The results show that the price-based policies seem less effective than the preference-based ones and that the best outputs are produced by a combination of the two policies, which allows a more efficient utilization and management of scarce public and private resources.