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ABSTRACTDue to an alarming threat of air pollution and climate change, governments around the world are now actively promoting electric vehicles. The case for vehicle electrification is even more important in big cities of developing countries, where motorcycle is a dominant mode of travel. To promote electric motorcycles successfully, we need to understand the factors that would drive the consumer choices when buying a motorcycle. This study chose Bandung in Indonesia as the case study location, where nearly 75% of vehicles are motorcycles. This study conducted a survey of preferences from over 700 residents and included battery charging methods such as plug-in/battery swap at home/office, superfast charging at stations, and deployed an innovative modelling approach constraining the mixture of distributions for monetary attributes. The study found that quick recharge in 10 minutes and battery swap at station are preferred over the base method of plug-in at home/work. The battery swap at home has been perceived the same as plug-in home/work and the respondents are indifferent to this option.

Green transformation at the beginning of the 21st century occupies the top positions in modern society’s sustainability transition research and policy debates due to its multiple propositions of various innovations, addressing the still unsolved issues of rapidly on-going societal and technological changes. Rooting from the general climate change concerns, recently, sustainability transformation has become a special focus in the EU, which is facing new and very concrete demands—to elucidate the evidence-based pathways towards the green transformation with European Green Deal and European Climate Law targets ahead. The main aim of this research is to disclose the pathway towards the green transformation in Lithuania in one of the fast-growing research fields of circular bioeconomy—biogas production from manure and waste. To reach this aim, a hybrid methodology approach was used. Analysis and synthesis of scientific literature, document analysis and structuring, stakeholder mapping, interviews, and statistical analysis methods had been applied. Research results gave evidence for one of the five proposed possible ways for green transformation in Lithuania—the regime transformation. Interviewed stakeholders repeatedly defined this as the most probable pathway for green transformation in Lithuania in the field of biogas production from manure and waste, considering the best suitability of the current development state in the field: adjustments of existing industries, skills, regulations, and institutions.

The difference in wages between executives and employees reflects the class conflict in corporate governance. To investigate the political factors within the practice of corporate governance related to employees, this paper empirically tests the relationship among political connections, ownership and within-firm pay gaps. We take the A-share listed companies on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchange as the example, design hypothesis tests and examine the effects of political connections on the pay gap in two distinctive groups of companies, the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and the non-stated-owned enterprises (non-SOEs). The overall result indicates that political connections increase the average salary of executives and decrease the average salary of employees, thereby expanding the within-firm pay gap. Pay gaps in companies with political connections are 16% higher than companies without political connections. The further test results of distinguishing property rights show that in non-SOEs, political connections increase the executives’ compensation and decrease the average compensation of employees, resulting in an increase of the within-firm pay gap. Similar relationships appear in SOEs but without statistical significance. These findings expand the research on income distribution effects of political connections theoretically, and provide useful insights for SOEs’ reform and income distribution system reform in practice.

Freeway bottleneck areas are prone to congestion and have high accident risk. A variable speed limit provides technical support for alleviating congestion and improving traffic safety in such areas. The existing variable speed limit rules in the related literature have a single focus, and most of them do not give specific quantitative speed limits. In this study, a variable speed limit system suitable for freeway bottleneck areas was constructed. Variable speed limit rules under different levels of traffic congestion and adverse weather conditions were designed, and the parameters for freeways were defined. Then, the VISSIM microscopic traffic simulation software was used to build two bottleneck scenarios of a tunnel area and a merging area for simulation tests. The research shows that in these two scenarios, reasonable speed limits can effectively reduce roadway delays and improve the operational efficiency of bottleneck areas in certain traffic flow ranges (e.g., a medium flow of around 900 pcu/h/lane). Unreasonable speed limits in low flow inhibit freeway efficiency more significantly. When congestion has already formed with high flow, different speed limits have a limited effect on efficiency improvement. The research results reported in this paper can provide a theoretical reference for the design and practical application of variable speed limit systems in freeway bottleneck areas. This provides a certain contribution to sustainable traffic development.

Many poverty−alleviation−relocation projects in China resort to tourism to sustain immigrants’ livelihood in new communities. However, how tourism contributes to poverty elimination and maintaining gains is yet to be discovered. Based on the sustainable livelihood concept, this study constructs a three-dimensional index system to evaluate livelihood sustainability and identify potential factors in three relocated tourism communities. Results show that most resettled residents have median-level livelihood sustainability. Livelihood capital, strategies, and environment contribute to livelihood sustainability in decreasing order. Regarding livelihood modes, tourism−led livelihood takes the first position in terms of supporting livelihood sustainability, followed by outside−work−led, local−work−led, and government subsidy−led livelihoods. Regarding obstacle factors, annual household income, number of household workers, and education levels are shared by relocated households across different livelihood modes. Aside from policy suggestions on survey sites, this study provides a holistic framework and enlightens the generalizable paradigm to the analysis of sustained livelihood via tourism development in relocated communities.

It is critical to encourage farmers to adopt agriculture technology that is beneficial to the environment in the context of the ongoing emphasis on the ecological growth of agriculture, yet risk and uncertainty diminish the incentive to adopt these technologies. This research examines whether crop insurance might affect and increase willingness to adopt Environmentally Friendly Agricultural Technology (EFAT) from a psychological perspective, utilizing data from 219 questionnaires in Shandong Province. The findings suggest that crop insurance can boost readiness to embrace technology in three ways: motivation, ability, and opportunity; however, the positive effect of motivation on farmers diminishes as capacity increases. Insurance companies must offer products that contain the risk of adopting EFAT as an insurance obligation as soon as feasible to successfully boost willingness to use technologies and collaborate with agricultural technology departments to provide farmers with training as well as disaster avoidance services.

Résumé Les transports génèrent de nombreuses externalités, dont celles liées à la pollution atmosphérique. Cet article analyse deux d’entre elles, les gaz à effet de serre et la pollution locale, qui, en général, sont étudiées séparément dans les travaux sur les politiques optimales de transport. Ici, ces externalités sont analysées conjointement grâce à un modèle de prise de décision séquentielle. Celui-ci permet de tenir compte de l’irréversibilité des politiques menées ainsi que de la possibilité d’une diminution progressive des incertitudes grâce à l’arrivée d’informations supplémentaires. Nous trouvons que des mesures structurelles qui permettent de limiter le recours aux transports privés sont économiquement plus avantageuses que des dispositifs techniques qui réduisent les émissions de substances polluantes. L’utilité de cette analyse conjointe des externalités est illustrée à travers deux cas : les dispositifs fiscaux qui grèvent l’automobile et la politique du logement. Classification JEL : C6; D62; D81; R48.

LocaGIStics is a support tool for the design of regional biomass delivery chains. It enables to further design and evaluate regional biomass delivery chains that are e.g. the result of initial planning by an energy company or a biobased producer. These general plans are translated in several biomass delivery designs using the variation in logistical concepts covering transport, pre-treatment and conversion options. The performance of every chain design can then be analyzed by comparing the different biomass delivery chains on the following environmental and economic indicators. A regional case study was performed in Aragón (Spain) using the LocaGIStics tool. In this case study maps were used where the biomass availability is specified for 2.5 x 2.5 grid cells. Data about the logistical components were supplied partly by the energy supplying company that was involved. This paper shows the main outcomes of this case study. Proceedings of the 25th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 12-15 June 2017, Stockholm, Sweden, pp. 41-47