Henrik Becker

• MSc
• Research Assistant at ETH Zurich

The results of studies investigating the impact of automated vehicles can vary substantially, partly due to different assumptions on key input parameters such as costs and travel behavior. We therefore present a detailed cost analysis that was performed for 17 metropolitan areas in 15 different countries. Furthermore, we show the results of a compr...

Interactions among different modes or vehicle classes in urban road networks affect the network performance in different and complex ways. Thus, an answer to the question of “how many cars are too many for a city?” is not trivial. However, multi-modal macroscopic fundamental diagrams (MFD) offer a novel opportunity to answer this question. So far,...

Automated driving technology along with electric propulsion are widely expected to fundamentally change our transport systems. They may not only allow a more productive use of travel time, but will likely trigger completely new business models in the mobility market. A key determinant of the future prospects of both existing and new mobility servic...

The adoption of electric vehicles has the potential to help decarbonizing the transport sector if they are powered by renewable energy sources. Limitations commonly associated with e-cars are their comparatively short ranges and long recharging cycles, leading to anxiety when having to travel long distances. Other factors such as temperature, desti...

GPS based campaigns have been hailed as an alternative to transportation surveys that promise relatively high accuracy at a relatively low burden on the participants and fewer forgotten trips. However they still necessitate the recruitment of participants and are thus potentially biased and certainly not encompassing significant parts of the popula...

In order to increase the number of bookings and revenue, most free-floating (electric) bicycle sharing operators periodically move bicycles to high demand areas (a process known as rebalancing). As rebalancing is time and cost intensive , an important question that arises is which bikes should be moved and which bikes are expected to be booked by t...

Many of today's urgent challenges, especially climate change and green house gas emissions are closely linked to the movement of people and goods. A possible path towards a more sustainable transport sector is given by the concept of Mobility as a Service (MaaS). SBB Green Class is one of the first large pilot projects for a multi-modal mobility fl...

Mobility as a Service (MaaS) is an attempt to overcome market segmentation by offering transport services tailored to the individual traveler's needs. An alternative to prior investment into single mobility tools, it may allow less biased mode choice decisions. Such a setting favors shared modes, where fixed costs can be apportioned among a large n...

This paper describes development and testing of a passive GPS tracking smartphone application and corresponding data analysis methodology designed to increase the quality of travel behavior information collected in long-term travel surveys. The new approach is intended to replace the pencil-and-paper travel diaries and prompted recall methods that...

Electric bicycles (e-bikes) are a new addition to bicycle-sharing and may improve its competitiveness. E-bikes allow for higher speeds at a higher level of comfort than conventional bicycles and, compared with traditional bicycle-sharing, e-bike-sharing is better positioned to complement or compete with existing public transportation, or to even ch...

We use data from the Swiss national household travel survey to 1. analyze the socioeconomic determinants for intermodal travel in Switzerland and 2. estimate a first large-scale multimodal recursive logit route choice model for urban trip making. We show that intermodal travel is mostly associated with ownership of transit subscriptions, which allo...

A considerable amount of research has been devoted to understanding and modeling carsharing services in the past. However, a research question that has not been investigated yet is how carsharing companies affect each other in a competitive market. This paper presents a methodology, based on the MATSim framework, for investigating the interaction o...

Free-floating car-sharing schemes operate without fixed car-sharing stations, ahead reservations or return-trip requirements. Providing fast and convenient motorization, they attract both public transport users and (former) car-owners. Thus, their impact on individual travel behavior depends on the user type. Estimating the travel behavior impact o...

Policies favoring the allocation of substantial space to parking take away this valuable space from other users in the process and give it to cars which are used for only small portions of the day. Free-floating carsharing is a service that provides fast point-to-point connections with an increased flexibility over more traditional carsharing servi...

Fast advances in autonomous driving technology trigger the question of suitable operational models for future autonomous vehicles. A key determinant of such operational models’ viability is the competitiveness of their cost structures. Using a comprehensive analysis of the respective cost structures, this research shows that public transportation (...

Free-floating car-sharing has been one of the latest innovations in the car-sharing market. It allows its customers to locate available vehicles via a smartphone app and reserve them for a short time prior to their rental. Because it is available for point-to-point trips, free-floating car-sharing is not only an alternative to private cars, but als...

Individual travel behavior is to a large extent shaped by the respective portfolio of available mobility tools such as cars, season-tickets or a car-sharing membership. However, the choices of different mobility tools are interdependent and are also affected by individual attitudes. This paper presents an approach to jointly model the choice of fou...

Autonomous vehicles are expected to offer a higher comfort of traveling at lower prices and at the same time to increase road capacity - a pattern recalling the rise of the private car and later of motorway construction. Using the Swiss national transport model, this research simulates the impact of autonomous vehicles on accessibility of the Swiss...

Free-floating car-sharing schemes operate without fixed car-sharing stations, ahead reservations or return-trip requirements. Providing fast and convenient motorization, they attract both public transportation users and (former) car-owners. However, given their highly flexible nature and different pricing structures, previous findings on user group...

Autonome Fahrzeuge versprechen, das Reisen zu günstigeren Preisen angenehmer zu machen und gleichzeitig die Straßenkapazität zu erhöhen. In dieser Arbeit wurde der Einfluss autonomer Fahrzeuge auf die Erreichbarkeiten der Schweizer Gemeinden untersucht. Die Resultate zeigen, dass die erwarteten Erreichbarkeitswirkungen mehr als einem Jahrzehnt an I...

This paper reports on ongoing work on getting a deeper insight into possible integrations of different shared vehicle systems. It introduces an original methodology in three stages, which helps dealing with the complexity of the problem. Using a simulation tool, different scenarios are assessed. The paper presents preliminary results obtained by si...