Jonas Eliasson
I am director of Transport Accessibility at the Swedish Transport Administration (Trafikverket), visiting professor of transport systems at Linköping University, and vice chair of the board of Expertgruppen för Offentliga Studier (ESO). Previously, I have been (among other things) chair of the division of Planning and Civil Engineering of the Royal Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA) 2019-2022, director of the Stockholm City Transport Adminstration 2016-2019, and professor of transport systems analysis at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) 2007-2017.
My research interests include cost-benefit analysis of transport projects and policies, decision making in the transport sector, transport pricing in general and congestion pricing in particular, transport modeling, public and political acceptability of transport policies, valuation of travel time and reliability, railway capacity allocation; generally speaking anything that has to do with analysing efficiency, equity and sustainability of transport projects and policies.
I have worked extensively with analyzing, developing and applying transport policies and appraisal methodologies, often acting as expert advisor on strategic transportation issues to cities, regional and national governments, both politicians and civil servants. I have been heavily involved in the design and evaluation of the congestion pricing systems in Stockholm (in operation since 2006) and Gothenburg (in operation since 2013). I have chaired the national committee for analysis of the National Transport Investment Plan, and been a member of the standing expert advisory board to the National appraisal guidelines committee.
You can reach me at jonas.eliasson (at) liu.se or jnseliasson (at) gmail.com. My Twitter account (not very active) is @EliassonJonas. You can also look for my publications through Google Scholar, at RePEc or my ResearchGate page.
Selected publications of general interest (by topic)
See the Publications page for more publications.Congestion pricing
"How to solve traffic jams" - a short talk published on TED.com.
Eliasson, J. (2014) The Stockholm congestion charges: an overview. CTS Working Paper 2014:7. If you're looking for material on the Stockholm congestion charges, this is probably what you should read first. It summarises the main points from several of my other papers.
Eliasson, J. (2014) The role of attitude structures, direct experience and framing for successful congestion pricing. Transportation Research A 67, 81-95. (Publicly available version: CTS WP 2014:1.) Despite the title, this is an easy read and the starting point for understanding the changes in attitudes to congestion charges in Stockholm.
Eliasson, J. (2017) Congestion pricing. In Ison, S. (ed.) Handbook of Transport Economics. Routledge. This is a summary of congestion pricing theory and practice, with a focus on lessons from theory that are relevant for practical implementations. It also contains a summary of implemented systems around the world.
Introducing congestion charging need not be political suicide. An English interview with me about the Stockholm congestion charges and their history.
På svenska: Från hatade till älskade: Så blev Stockholms trängselavgifter en internationell förebild. Kvartal, januari 2020.
If you are looking for scientific references about the Stockholm congestion charges , I would suggest these ones:
Eliasson, J. (2014) The role of attitude structures, direct experience and framing for successful congestion pricing. Transportation Research A 67, 81-95
Börjesson, M., Eliasson, J., Hugosson, M. B., & Brundell-Freij, K. (2012). The Stockholm congestion charges — 5 years on. Effects, acceptability and lessons learnt. Transport Policy, 20(0), 1-12. doi:10.1016/j.tranpol.2011.11.001
Eliasson, J. (2009) A cost-benefit analysis of the Stockholm congestion charging system. Transportation Research A 43(4), pp. 468-480. doi:10.1016/j.tra.2008.11.014
Eliasson, J. (2008) Lessons from the Stockholm congestion charging trial. Transport Policy 15(6), p. 395-404. doi:10.1016/j.tranpol.2008.12.004
Decision making in the transport sector
Eliasson, J., Börjesson, M., Odeck, J., Welde, M. (2015) Does benefit/cost-efficiency influence transport investment decisions? Journal of Transport Economics and Policy 49(3), 377-396. (Publicly available version: CTS WP 2014:6).
Börjesson, M. och Eliasson, J. (2015) Kostnadseffektivitet i valet av infrastrukturinvesteringar. Rapport till Finanspolitiska rådet 2015.
Eliasson, J. (2015) Problemstyrd planering: en förklaring till att effektivitet spelar så liten roll för valet av transportåtgärder. In Welde (ed.): Transportplanering och samhällsekonomi i Skandinavien. Concept, Oslo. Download from CTS WP 2015:15
Börjesson, M., Eliasson, J., Lundberg, M. (2014) Is CBA ranking of transport investments robust? Journal of Transport Economics and Policy 48(2), 189-204. (Publicly available version: CTS WP 2012:30.)
Bicycling
Börjesson, M. and Eliasson, J. (2012) The value of time and external benefits in bicycle appraisal. Transportation Research A, 46(4) 673-683. (Publicly available version: CTS WP 2011:22.)
Börjesson, M., and Eliasson, J. (2012) The benefits of cycling: Viewing cyclists as travellers rather than non-motorists. In Parkin (ed.): Cycling and sustainability, Emerald. Download from CTS WP 2015:17
Transport policy
Eliasson, J. (2019) Stockholms transportsystem - 45 punkter för en bättre Stockholmstrafik. [In Swedish. The Stockholm transport system - 45 items for improving Stockholm transportation.] Stockholm Chamber of Commerce.
Börjesson, M., Eliasson, J., Rubensson, I. (2020) Distributional effects of public transport subsidies. Journal of Transport Geography (forthcoming). (Publicly available version: CTS Working Paper 2018:17)
Eliasson, J., Pyddoke, R., Swärdh, J-E. (2018) Distributional effects of taxes on car use, fuel, ownership and purchases. Economics of Transportation 15, 1-15. (Publicly available version: CTS WP 2016:11)
Other things