Florian Maurus Lichtin


Last Name

Lichtin

First Name

Florian Maurus

ORCID

0000-0002-6447-6556

Organisational unit

03446 - Bernauer, Thomas / Bernauer, Thomas

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2022 - 202516
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Publications 1 - 10 of 16
  • "How much should public transport services be expanded, and who should pay? Experimental evidence from Switzerland”
    Item type: Journal Article
    Lichtin, Florian Maurus; Smith, E. Keith; Axhausen, Kay W.; et al. (2024)
    Transport Policy
    The twin challenge of increasing capacity to accommodate growing travel demand while simultaneously decarbonizing the transport sector places enormous pressure on public transport (PT) systems globally. Arguably the most fundamental policy choice and trade-off in designing and operating PT systems in the coming years will be service levels versus cost implications. On the presumption that public (citizen and consumer) opinion is crucial to making such choices, we study this question with a focus on Switzerland by using a factorial experiment (n = 1’634) that considers the frequency and geographic coverage of PT services as well as the cost implications for PT users and taxpayers. We find that support for increased frequency of connections and more services to peripheral regions is high as long as such service expansion is funded mainly by the government, rather than PT users. Preferences are generally consistent across subgroups, except in the case of government funding, where preferences differ by political orientation. This suggests that there is substantial demand across the board for PT services expansion funded primarily by the government, but that the question of funding is also potentially politically the most controversial. While our findings are specific to a country with a highly developed PT system, our research provides a template for similar research in other countries that struggle with a similar challenge.
  • Schweizer Mobilitätspanel. Dritte Erhebungswelle: Priority Evaluator / Tempo 30
    Item type: Report
    Lichtin, Florian Maurus; Smith, E. Keith; Wehrli, Stefan; et al. (2023)
    Im Folgenden werden die Ergebnisse der dritten Welle des Schweizer Mobilitätspanels präsentiert, die von Mai bis Juli 2022 durchgeführt wurde. Das Schweizer Mobilitätspanel ist eine Panelbefragung (d.h. die gleichen Personen werden wiederholt befragt), welche die ETH Zürich zwei Mal im Jahr durchführt. In der dritten Welle beantworteten die Teilnehmenden Fragen u.a. zum Themenbereich Klimaeinstellungen und Klimapolitikpräferenzen mit Fokus auf Verkehrspolitik. Ein Grossteil der Welle besteht zudem aus einem CO2-Rechner und einer darauf basierenden, individualisierten Webapplikation. Diese Applikation erlaubt es den Befragten, verschiedene Verhaltensänderungen hinsichtlich ihrer Effektivität in Bezug auf CO2-Einsparungen sowie finanziellen Kosten/Einsparungen zu testen und für sich auszuwählen («Priority Evaluator»). Zudem enthält die Welle Fragen zu Präferenzen gegenüber einer Höchstgeschwindigkeit von 30 km/h («Tempo 30») in städtischen Gebieten. Insgesamt zeigt sich ein Grossteil der Befragten sehr besorgt über den Klimawandel. Die meisten Befragten glauben daran, dass der Klimawandel überwiegend durch menschliches Handeln verursacht wird, und sehen auch eine grosse persönliche Verantwortung, die eigenen CO2-Emissionen zu reduzieren. Weniger überzeugt sind die Befragten, dass diese Reduktion massgeblich zur Begrenzung des Klimawandels beiträgt, wobei dies bei politisch rechts stehenden Personen eher der Fall ist als bei anderen. Zudem sind die meisten befragten Personen auch der Meinung, dass die Schweizer Regierung zusätzliche Massnahmen beschliessen wird, um die CO$_2$-Emissionen zu verringern. Die auf individuellen Emissionsdaten basierende Webapplikation, der Priority Evaluator, zeigt überdies auf, inwiefern die Befragten ein vorgegebenes CO$_2$-Emissionsreduktionsziel (30% ihrer momentanen Emissionen) erreichen könnten. Insgesamt erreichten rund 52% aller Befragten, welche dem Priority Evaluator zugewiesen wurden, ihr Reduktionsziel. Insbesondere Personen, welche über ein höheres Haushaltseinkommen verfügen, sich als politisch links identifizieren sowie über einen tertiären Bildungsabschluss verfügen, weisen eine signifikant höhere Wahrscheinlichkeit auf, das Reduktionsziel zu erreichen. In Bezug auf klimapolitische Massnahmen im Bereich Verkehr zeigt sich klar, dass die Befragten Instrumente bevorzugen, mit denen Anreize zu umweltfreundlicherem Verhalten geschaffen werden. Wenig Unterstützung geniessen Instrumente, welche auf zusätzlichen Abgaben oder Verboten basieren, mit Ausnahme einer zusätzlichen Abgabe auf Flugtickets. Bei Massnahmen im Bereich Ernährung und Wohnen zeigt sich ein ähnliches Muster, abgesehen von einer Zustimmung von über 50% der Befragten für zusätzliche Abgaben auf Heizöl und Erdgas. Bei den Befragten, welche den Fragen zu einer Höchstgeschwindigkeitsbegrenzungen von 30 km/h in grösseren Städten zugewiesen wurden, zeigt sich klar, dass eine solche Begrenzung nur auf Quartiersstrassen die Zustimmung einer Mehrheit erreicht. Mehr als 50% der Befragten sind gegen eine generelle Einführung einer solchen Höchstgeschwindigkeit auf allen Strassen. Gründe dafür könnten die Ansicht sein, dass dies zu starke negative Auswirkungen für den Verkehrsfluss hat, oder aber die Überzeugung, dass positive Aspekte wie weniger Lärmemissionen die Einschränkung nicht rechtfertigen.
  • Road pricing policy preferences in Switzerland
    Item type: Other Conference Item
    Lichtin, Florian Maurus; Smith, E. Keith; Axhausen, Kay W.; et al. (2022)
  • The future of public transport design in a postpandemic world
    Item type: Conference Paper
    Lichtin, Florian Maurus; Smith, E. Keith; Axhausen, Kay W.; et al. (2023)
    The COVID-19 pandemic has instigated substantial changes to daily routines and behaviors. Specifically, one lasting impact of the pandemic has been more flexible work arrangements. Such increased time and commuting flexibility can fundamentally impact future public transport use. Accordingly, the pricing and business models of public transit providers are being increasingly questioned. Yet, the post-pandemic future of public transportation usage remains unclear. Here public opinion plays a crucial role – particularly regarding which types of service delivery modes people think the government should support. Should the government support increased number of connections throughout the day and to peripheral regions, or rather incentivize shifting towards more demand-based services? How much public funding should be provided for these services? And lastly, how do these preferences vary by individual characteristics? We explore citizen preferences for the case of public transportation in Switzerland via a full factorial survey experiment within a nationally representative survey (Winter 2022). We find that generally, people are in favor of higher government contributions. While we find that increased ticket prices are only accepted if both number of connections and connections to peripheral regions are improved, people seem to be accepting more demand-driven forms of service when ticket prices are lowered.
  • Swiss mobility panel
    Item type: Conference Poster
    Bernauer, Thomas; Axhausen, Kay W.; Smith, E. Keith; et al. (2023)
    Mobility in Switzerland (km/day) has been increasing steadily across recent decades. While generally seen as beneficial to society at large, increased mobility comes with various negative effects. Notably, emissions from the transport sector remained constant, impeding efforts in Switzerland to meet climate protection targets. Given these diverse demands, it is difficult to identify political majorities necessary to develop policy solutions. Against this backdrop, the Swiss Mobility Panel explores public opinion dynamics in Switzerland, focusing on mobility preferences and behaviors, and linkages to preferences and behavior across policy realms.
  • Societal Challenges for Effective and Feasible Climate Policy: Understanding Behavioural Dynamics and Mass Public Policy Preferences
    Item type: Doctoral Thesis
    Lichtin, Florian Maurus (2025)
    Mitigating anthropogenic climate change is one of humanity’s greatest challenges, with climate change’s adverse effects ranging from rising sea levels to biodiversity loss and threats to livelihoods. While technological solutions are important, behavioural changes, particularly in household consumption, have significant potential for reducing emissions. However, despite widespread awareness and concern about climate change, progress in adopting policies that effectively alter emission-related behaviours remains limited. Against this backdrop, this cumulative dissertation investigates the crucial role of behavioural preferences and public opinion for the development of climate policies. It puts a particular focus on identifying behavioural and public opinion barriers to effective and politically feasible climate policy and suggests pathways to overcome them. Empirically, this dissertation studies behavioural preferences and public opinion formation in Switzerland. The direct democratic nature of its political system makes it a suitable and relevant case particularly for public opinion research. The main data source is the Swiss Mobility Panel, a novel longitudinal data collection project established in 2020 that allows the study of environmental and mobility-related attitudes, behaviours and policy preferences as well as changes therein among a representative sample of the Swiss resident population. The online-based survey mode of the Swiss Mobility Panel allows the fielding of advanced survey-embedded experiments, as well as the use of personalised browser-based applications for collecting the data used in the four chapters of this dissertation. Paper 1 addresses behavioural barriers to effective climate policy. I study individual perceptions of the feasibility of carbon emission-reducing behaviours and identify behavioural changes that are both most effective and acceptable. The results show that people commonly prefer cost-effective low-carbon technologies, but are also willing to reduce air travel to some extent. Paper 2 responds to the lack of behavioural interventions that successfully foster pro-environmental behaviours. I test whether a novel, highly personalised choice task that asks about emission reduction preferences can be used as a behavioural intervention to this end. The results show that the intervention slightly increases self-efficacy perceptions — a key determinant of pro-environmental behaviour — for some respondents but also backfires on those that seem to have limited feasible emission reduction options available. Paper 3 focuses on public opposition to a policy that disincentivises private motorised transport: road pricing. I examine whether citizens’ cost-benefit calculations can be improved by informing them about environmental benefits of road pricing, as well as earmarking revenues from road pricing for public transport improvements. The results show that while information on environmental benefits does not increase policy support, earmarking revenues does. However, support only increases for policy designs that are not stringent enough to substantively change driving behaviour. Paper 4 focuses on citizens’ evaluations of different public transport designs as low-carbon alternatives to private motorised transport. I examine how citizens trade off costs and benefits in public transport service provisioning. The results show that while citizens support the expansion of services, they only do so if it is funded by the government. At the same time, respondents have a strong preference for lower ticket prices, even if this would result in lower service levels for some. The overall contribution of this dissertation lies in its in-depth analysis of behavioural preferences and public opinion formation to inform climate- and mobility policy design in the context of a rapidly changing climate. The four key takeaways are: 1. Climate policies should be more closely aligned with the behavioural preferences of citizens and consumers to be most impactful: subsidizing the adoption of low-carbon technology and disincentivizing air travel should be prioritised by policymakers. 2. Developing self-efficacy-enhancing behavioural interventions to promote emission reducing behaviours is challenging: behavioural interventions should leverage gamified approaches and target a variety of determinants of pro-environmental behavioural change. 3. Road pricing aimed at disincentivizing private motorised transport lacks sufficient public support despite the inclusion of revenue recycling mechanisms. Policy trials remain the most promising strategy to popularize road pricing. 4. Citizen’s support for improved public transport infrastructure via government funding is high across the political spectrum, but citizens are also open to some service reductions to reduce ticket prices. In summary, this dissertation shows how behavioural and public opinion barriers to effective and politically feasible climate policies can be overcome to some extent. Aligning policies more closely with behavioural preferences promises enhanced policy effectiveness. Additionally, addressing public opinion barriers to decarbonising private motorised transport in policy design can increase their political feasibility. These findings from the Swiss context offer valuable insights for other high-income democracies that struggle with adopting effective and politically feasible climate policies.
  • Generational replacement and Green party support in Western Europe
    Item type: Journal Article
    Lichtin, Florian Maurus; Van Der Brug, Wouter; Rekker, Roderik (2023)
    Electoral Studies
    Over the past decades, electoral support for Green parties has gradually increased in Western Europe, especially among young people. This begs the question whether there are systematic differences between generations in support for Green parties, and whether there are also life-cycle effects. We answer this question by separating age, period and cohort effects on Green party support using CSES data covering 40 elections in 11 Western European countries. We find that when controlling for period and age, each new generation is more supportive of the Greens than the generation before. We also find negative age effects. While Green parties can expect to benefit in the future from generational replacement, the consequences of aging societies are to their disadvantage.
  • Preferred strategies to reduce CO2-emissions by 30
    Item type: Conference Paper
    Heimgartner, Daniel; Lichtin, Florian Maurus; Axhausen, Kay W. (2024)
    While cost of climate policies and their distributional consequences have become increasingly relevant, very little is currently known about how people across societal sub-groups evaluate and trade-off necessary behavioural changes and financial costs when faced with decisions about how to reduce individual carbon emissions. To understand such preferred pathways, a priority evaluator experiment was fielded. 3‘456 participants were tasked to reduce their initial carbon emission levels by 30% by choosing their preferred strategy mix and how intensely they want to pursue any chosen strategy. We use a Multiple Discrete-Continuous Extreme Value Model (MDCEV) to model both dimensions simultaneously. We find that while strategies that imply behavioral change are generally accepted, they usually only contribute little to overall savings. Meanwhile, outsourcing a considerable chunk of reductions via certificates is a prominent choice. In particular, high-income households tend to reduce emissions via investments, while lower-income households may have to bear disproportionally more of the behavioral cost in order to reach the reduction target. People further to the right on the political scale reach the target less frequently and prefer measures that benefit the housing unit (better insulation of the facade and roof), or install solar panels. This might be important since right-leaning individuals are generally more critical of climate change and the need to take personal action. Incentivizing these individuals to invest in reduction strategies might therefore be pivotal.
  • Schweizer Mobilitätspanel. Zweite Erhebungswelle: Covid-19 / Road Pricing
    Item type: Report
    Lichtin, Florian Maurus; Smith, E. Keith; Amberg, Stefano; et al. (2023)
    Im Folgenden werden die Ergebnisse der zweiten Welle des Schweizer Mobilitätspanels präsentiert, die von Juni bis August 2021 durchgeführt wurde. Das Schweizer Mobilitätspanel ist eine Panelbefragung (d.h. die gleichen Personen werden wiederholt befragt), welche die ETH Zürich zwei Mal im Jahr durchführt. In der zweiten Welle beantworteten die Teilnehmenden Fragen zum Themenbereich COVID-19 und den daraus resultierenden Veränderungen in Bezug auf Home-Office, Mobilitätsverhalten und -einstellungen. Zudem enthält die Welle ein Umfrageexperiment zu Road Pricing-Präferenzen. Insgesamt arbeiteten fast die Hälfte aller Befragten zum Erhebungszeitpunkt mindestens einen Tag die Woche im Home-Office, und fast zwei Drittel der arbeitstätigen Befragten wünschen sich auch zukünftig die Möglichkeit, weiter einen gewissen Teil der Arbeitswoche im Home-Office zu verbringen. Rund 46% der Befragten geben zudem an, ein gesetzlich garantiertes Recht auf Home-Office in Berufen wo dies möglich ist tendenziell zu befürworten. Was das Mobilitätsverhalten zum Zeitpunkt der Befragung (Sommer 2021) betrifft, lässt sich erkennen, dass die Nutzung des öffentlichen Verkehrs noch nicht auf das Niveau vor der Pandemie zurückgekehrt ist. Der Besitz von Abonnements für den öffentlichen Verkehr ist analog dazu im Vergleich zur Erhebung der ersten Welle des Schweizer Mobilitätspanels im Winter 2020 niedriger. Bei den GA-Besiterzinnen geben aber rund 90% aller Befragten an, dies auch zukünftig verlängern zu wollen. Ein wichtiger Grund für den Rückgang der Nutzung der öffentlichen Verkehrsmittel könnte neben vermehrtem Home-Office eine erhöhte Sorge vor einer Ansteckung durch COVID-19 sein. Rund ein Drittel derjenigen, welche vor oder während der COVID-19-Pandemie zumindest manchmal den öffentlichen Verkehr benutzt geben an, sich tendenziell vor einer Ansteckung zu sorgen. Massnahmen wie z.B. bessere Lüftungen würden zwar zu einer potenziell häufigeren Nutzung von öffentlichen Verkehrsmitteln führen, andere Massnahmen wie z.B. eine stärkere Durchsetzung der Maskenpflicht werden jedoch kontroverser beurteilt. Zuletzt lässt das Umfrageexperiment zu nutzenbasierten Strassengebühren (Road Pricing) den Schluss zu, dass die Befragten tendenziell Massnahmenpakete stärker befürworten, welche die Kosten niedrig halten und Durchschnittsgeschwindigkeiten auf Autobahnen und in Stadtzentren garantieren die nahe an der gesetzlich zugelassenen Maximalgeschwindigkeit liegen. Zudem sprechen sich die Befragten eher für Massnahmenpakete aus, welche die daraus generierten Einnahmen zweckgebunden in Form von mehr Investitionen in den öffentlichen Verkehr oder Investitionen in andere ‘grüne’ Infrastruktur’ an die Bevölkerung rückverteilen.
  • Compensating losses in fossil fuel tax revenues: First evidence of public support for a BEV mileage tax
    Item type: Journal Article
    Levis, Alessio; Lichtin, Florian Maurus; Bernauer, Thomas (2025)
    Transport Policy
    The increasing share of battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) goes hand in hand with declining government revenue from fossil fuel taxes. This, in turn, erodes funding for roads and other purposes. One currently considered option by governments for filling the emerging budget gap is a BEV mileage tax. Recent research suggests that public support for a transition from vehicle fuel taxes to mileage taxes for all vehicles is low. But what about a mileage tax on BEVs only? We argue that majority public support for a BEV mileage tax is currently conceivable, given that owners of electric vehicles may be perceived as (partial) free riders, specifically in countries where fuel taxes are earmarked for road infrastructure. Based on a choice experiment with a representative sample of the adult population in Switzerland (n=3283), where such a BEV mileage tax is currently considered, we study overall support and also assess how policy design attributes, such as the mileage measurement method and the chosen tariff system, affect policy preferences. We find that a BEV mileage tax could obtain majority support, specifically for tax designs that account for vehicle weight and power. At the same time, current BEV owners are less supportive of a new BEV mileage tax, indicating that growing BEV ownership could challenge policy implementation. Further, we discuss the risk of how the increase in ownership costs for BEV holders could potentially slow BEV adoption and jeopardize climate targets. The research reported here provides a template for studying the issue in other countries.
Publications 1 - 10 of 16