People

Timothy's recent research involves exploring the relationship between income and vehicle ownership across countries. He finds that income does not appear to be as strong a determinant of car ownership as is commonly believed. Because the rate of car ownership in industrializing economies such as Hong Kong is much higher than in mature economies, he recommends that traffic restraint via fiscal measures ought to be sharpened. Timothy's expert views on Hong Kong's chronic traffic congestion problem have been aired on television and radio programs, as well as in magazine and newspaper interviews.

As a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Transport, Timothy has served the community as a Council Member for over a decade and contributed to public policy proposals on transport problems. He has helped to strengthen the interface between transport research and practice by founding the Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies, where he currently serves as a Board Member. In addition to serving on the Editorial Advisory Boards of three international journals, Timothy is a delegate of Hong Kong SAR's Transportation Working Group to APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) and PECC (Pacific Economic Cooperation Council). As a delegate, he was invited to present his recommendations on how to achieve an efficient transport system to the Second APEC Urban Transport Forum in Taipei last fall.

Some of Timothy's interesting ideas have percolated in a new third-year course he designed called "Project Evaluation and Financing", in which topics of current interest on infrastructure financing such as BOT (Build, Operate and Transfer) road projects by the World Bank, the Western Harbour Tunnel Co. Ltd. and Sir Gordon Wu's Hopewell Holdings are discussed. At present he is working jointly on a book on domestic transport policy with Stephen Ching of City University of Hong Kong, to be published by the City University Press.

• "Economic Fundamentals of Road Pricing: A Diagrammatic Analysis,"
  World Bank Policy Research Working Paper Series WPS 1070, The World Bank, Washington D.C., December 1992, pp.1-96.
• "Congestion Charging Mechanisms for Roads: An Evaluation of Current Practice,"
  World Bank Policy Research Working Paper Series WPS 1071, The World Bank, Washington D.C., December 1992, pp.1-99.
• "Instruments for Charging Congestion Externalities,"
  in Börje Johansson and Lars-Göran Mattsson (eds.), Road Pricing: Theory, Empirical Assessment and Policy, Norwell, Massachusetts: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1995, pp.223-234.
• "Estimation of Marginal Congestion Costs, Congestion Tolls and Revenues for Urban Road Use in Indonesia,"
  Proceedings of the International Conference on Advanced Technologies in Transportation and Traffic Management, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, May 1994, pp.77-88.
• "Transportation Demand Management in Hong Kong,"
  in Jeffry Stubbs and Giles Clarke (eds.), Megacity Management in the Asian and Pacific Region, Vol. 1, The Asian Development Bank and the United Nations/World Bank Urban Management Programme for Asia and the Pacific, Manila, Philippines, 1996, pp.389-408.
• "Transport for Urban Development in Hong Kong,"
  in The United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (ed.), Transport and Communications for Urban Development, National University of Singapore and The United Nations Centre for Human Settlements, Nairobi, Kenya, 1997, pp.267-289.
• "Congestion Pricing and Road Investment,"
  in Kenneth J. Button and Erik T. Verhoef (eds.), Road Pricing, Traffic Congestion and the Environment, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., Cheltenhaum, England, 1998, pp.39-78.