דוקטורנטים מספרים - Rotem Izak
Understanding consumers’ choices of alternative fuel vehicles
Rotem Izak (Ph.D. candidate)
Supervisor: Dr. Vered Blass and Dr. Anat Tchetchik ( Bar Ilan University)
Hello, my name is Rotem Izak. Energy and transportation markets are the largest source of air pollution and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions which are responsible for the environmental crisis we are now experiencing. Fortunately, there is growing worldwide awareness that electric-based transportation alongside of renewable and clean energy production can provide the answer.
Electric mobility is about to change more than just the engine in our cars. An electric car allows you to charge it at home at night, while you are at work during the day, or even while you are doing Yoga or going to the movies. Nonetheless, it changes infrastructure, affects parking arrangements, creates a growing demand for electricity, and increases mining of lithium for batteries. All these variables force us to rethink how we treat vehicles at the End of Life (EOL), reducing government income from fuel taxes, and much more.
These tectonic changes require extensive planning and governments all over the world understand that. The MESSAGE model, developed in IIASA and currently being adjusted to Israel, is an Integrated Assessment Model (IAM) that uses a framework for medium- to long-term energy system planning, energy policy analysis, and scenario development. It is a computational model aimed to provide policy-relevant insights by simulating the simultaneous actions and interactions of both individuals and collective entities in the transportation-energy market. Currently the computational module responsible for simulating the passenger car segment, the largest transportation segment, is still not advanced enough; this significantly lowers the scenario reliability of the model.
My research goals involve using an advanced experimental methodology and state of the art statistical analysis methods to model how people make decisions when buying a car. It is my hope that that my findings and the knowledge gained from my study will be beneficial towards improving the behavioral realism of the MESSAGE consumer module.
