اثرسنجي اقتصاديِ استفاده از دورتحصيلي به‌عنوان راهكار مديريت تقاضاي سفرهاي تحصيلي

AN ECONOMIC IMPACT ANALYSIS OF DISTANCE-LEARNING AS A TRANSPORTATION DEMAND MANAGEMENT STRATEGY FOR EDUCATIONAL TRIPS

رقابت بين سرعت توسعهي زيرساختهاي حمل ونقل و رشد تقاضا، پديده‌يي پيچيده و دنبالهدار است كه مشكلات ترافيكي و زيست‌محيطي و نيز اختلال در سلامت جسم و روان‌ِ جامعه پيامدهاي منفيِ آن است. رويكرد نوين مسيله، شامل تعريف متفاوت و جديد مسيله، مبتني بر مديريت كاراتر است. يكي از تعاريف درست و دقيق «تقاضاي حمل‌ونقل» ــ با توجه به مشتق‌بودن اين تقاضا ــ دست‌يابي به هدف سفر بدون نياز به انجام سفر فيزيكي است. مديريت تقاضاي حمل ونقل، با رويكردي علمي به‌دنبال دست‌يابي به اهداف سفر با كم‌ترين تعداد سفرهاي فيزيكي است. در اين نوشتار اثرسنجي به‌كارگيري دورتحصيلي به عنوان يكي از راهكارهاي مديريت تقاضاي سفرهاي تحصيلي در شهر مشهد ارايه شده و تلاش مي‌شود رابطه‌يي رياضي بين مقدار صرفه جويي رياليِ حاصل از اجراي سياست هاي مديريت تقاضاي دورتحصيلي ارايه كند. نتايج اين نوشتار مي‌تواند مديران شهري را در كاهش سفرهاي تحصيلي در قالبِ راهكاري براي مديريت تقاضاي حمل ونقل با تعريفي درست از مسيله ياري كند.

Urban sustainable development requires effective and efficient management strategies that employ invaluable and scarce resources appropriately. Such approaches to the transportation and traffic problem include an innovative definition of the problem, mainly based on more efficient traffic management strategies. Considering the derived nature of transportation demand, these transportation demand management (TDM) strategies make possible the achievement of a trip purpose without need of the actual trip, which, in cases of educational trips, can be materialized by, e.g., distance-learning. This paper aims for an economic impact analysis of distance-learning as a TDM strategy for educational trips in the city of Mashhad, through scenario building for the morning traffic peak period. Due to the scarcity of research in the field of distance-learning and its impact analysis, particularly in Iran, this paper is a first effort in addressing this issue; particularly from a quantitative perspective. Comprehensive transportation studies of the city of Mashad are utilized as the basis for data and information needed to run the models on the scale of a large city with a population of more than 2.5 million. The software package used for transportation modeling and calculation of the impact of different scenarios of distance-learning adoption, is VISUM; yielding total vehicle-kilometers traveled (VKT). Wardropʹs first principal of equilibrium is used as the conceptual framework for the prediction of link volumes; given the network structure, link performance functions and origin destination demand matrices. Results of the twenty-one scenario model implementations show that the economic savings due to these scenarios range from 1.5 to 2.5 million VKT, which, for the 50 percent adoption scenario, is about 2.06, causing a saving in gas consumption of about 47 thousand liters. Assuming the price of 7000 rials per liter, approximately 33 million rials can be saved by applying this strategy for one hour of morning peak traffic. Results of this paper can be useful to urban managers in planning transportation systems, and the alleviation of the traffic problem of large and populated cities, by omitting trips whose purpose can be attained otherwise, through the application of information and communication technology.