Cost Function and Operating Characteristics of Electric Bus in Taiwan
Date Issued
2015
Date
2015
Author(s)
Huang, Tzu-Jan
Abstract
In recent year, various countries are thinking the feasibility of new energy to replace fossil fuel because of the critical challenges on climate change and energy saving with the trend of increasing fuel price. Since transport sector contributes the high proportion of the energy consumption, which is only less than industry sector in most of countries, the public land transport has been recognized with the advantage of applying the new energy vehicles, such as hybrid, fuel cell, and electric bus. Among them, the electric bus has comparative advantages of quiet, clean and cost effectiveness. However, the expensive capital costs of the electric bus is still one of the key factor for success of commercial operation. In addition, it is found that the availability of electric bus is also a crucial factor which may not only cause the additional operation costs but also become an obstacle for promotion of electric bus in Taiwan. The study aims to identify and analyze the cost structure and operating characteristics of the electric bus by developing Translog cost function of electric bus in Taiwan. The output of the function is set as mileage while the input variables consist of capital price, labor price and intermediate input price. The data used in the emprical analysis is obtained from the four operators with their operation data from April 2014 to November 2014. The results have indicated that the operating routes of electric bus have characteristics of scale economies. It is also shown that the capital cost of electric bus exists the stickiness. Besides, it is found that the intermediate input cost affect the total cost the most, which is caused by the comparatively poor availability of electric bus. Through the analysis of regression between the cost and the availability, it has also indicated that the cost saving efficiency is good when the availability is low. It is also concluded that the key factor affecting the availability is the electric efficiency.
Subjects
Electric Bus
Translog Cost Function
Economic Characteristics
Availability
Type
thesis
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