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When Dr Brett Smith first applied for a job as a research assistant at the UWA Business School , he didn't imagine it would lead to a teaching career, PhD, and international research prize.

Brett simply saw the position - research assistant to John Taplin, now a senior honorary research fellow at the UWA Business School - as a means of no longer having to commute between Pinjarra and Perth.

Now, Brett's PhD dissertation has won him the 2011 Eric Pas Dissertation Prize from the International Association for Travel Behaviour Research (IATBR) and sparked an ongoing interest in transport and logistics.

The dissertation brings together discrete choice estimates and microeconomics, and allows researchers to infer demand response more accurately than ever before.

In the case of Brett's dissertation, this meant he was able to confirm that when fuel or public transport prices increased, the changes didn't just cause Sydney commuters to switch from one mode of transport to another. Instead, some commuters also chose to reduce their total travel by a measurable amount.

Previous discrete choice models have assumed a fixed number of trips, only allowing researchers to examine consumers' relative preferences for different transport modes. Microeconomics, however, incorporates consumers' budget decisions - and thus accounts for consumers changing their overall behaviour patterns - for example, by choosing to travel less. In this research, Brett found that Sydney's lowest income earners were more likely to adjust - travel patterns in the face of fuel price or transport fare increases.

The blending of discrete choice estimates and microeconomics, says Brett, will have applications in a range of fields. In future research, Brett and fellow UWA researchers are planning to examine housing choices and how people choose to live and move through cities. Other projects will investigate the adoption of electric vehicles, and consumers' airline choices in Southern China.

Then, there's the issue of Perth's public transport system and its associated "risks". Why do commuters choose to park and ride rather than drive? Would someone rather risk facing a traffic jam on the freeway, or trying to find a parking space at a popular train station?

Discrete choice estimates and microeconomics will - hopes Brett - help researchers to shed more light on why different consumers have different preferences, and how these preferences relate to their values.

With his dissertation winning an international prize, in addition to the UWA Business School's 2011 BHP Billiton PhD Prize, Brett's research in demand elasticities has proven significant.

What Brett still hasn't admitted to Emeritus Professor Taplin - his once employer and PhD supervisor - is that up until seeing Taplin's job advertisement for a research assistant, he had never even heard of demand elasticities.

Brett - who was then a mathematics and physical education teacher - spent the morning of the job interview in the UWA library, diligently reading one of Taplin's research papers on demand elasticity. Luckily, he got the job.

Now, Brett has not only gained a job in Perth, but also travelled to New York, Niagara Falls, and the CN Tower in Toronto in July this year, when he received his prize at the IATBR Conference Banquet.

With a prize-winning dissertation, teaching position with responsibilities across the UWA Business School's undergraduate and postgraduate courses, and pipeline of future research, foregoing his own lengthy commute has proven the perfect choice for Brett.

Media references

Catherine Vogel (UWA Business School) +618 6488 7340
Verity Chia (UWA Business School) +618 6488 1346