Public transit accounts for only 1% of U.S. passenger miles traveled but nevertheless attracts strong public support. Using a simple choice model, we predict that transit riders are likely to be individuals who commute along routes with the most severe roadway delays. These individuals' choices...

Developing country megacities suffer from severe road traffic congestion, yet the level of congestion is not a direct measure of equilibrium inefficiency. I study the peak-hour traffic congestion equilibrium in Bangalore. To measure travel preferences, I use a model of departure time choice to...

We estimate an equilibrium model of residential sorting with endogenous traffic congestion to evaluate the efficiency and equity impacts of urban transportation policies. Leveraging fine-scale data on household travel diaries and housing transactions with home and work locations in Beijing, we...

We develop a methodology to estimate robust city level vehicular mobility indices, and apply it to 154 Indian cities using 22 million counterfactual trips measured by a web mapping service. There is wide variation in mobility across cities. An exact decomposition shows this variation is driven...

In cities worldwide, the widespread use of single occupancy cars often leads to traffic congestion and its associated ill effects. Using high frequency data from Google Maps, we test whether high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) policies can be an effective tool to combat congestion. Using the unexpected...

We assemble a new global database on motor vehicle travel speed in over 1,200 large cities in 152 countries. We then estimate comparable city-level indices of travel speed and congestion. Most of the variation in urban travel speed is across countries, not within. National income per capita...