The determinants of long distance travel in Great Britain

This study analyses of the determinants of long distance travel in Great Britain using data from the 1995-2006 National Travel Surveys (NTSs). The main objective is to determine the effects of socio-economic, demographic and geographic factors on long distance travel. The estimated models express the distance travelled for long distance journeys as a function of income, gender, age, employment status, household characteristics, area of residence, size of municipality, type of residence and length of time living in the area. A time trend is also included to capture common changes in long distance travel over time not included in the explanatory variables. Separate models are estimated for total travel, travel by each of four modes (car, rail, coach and air), travel by five purposes (business, commuting, leisure, holiday and visiting friends and relatives (VFRs)) and two journey lengths (<150 miles and 150+ miles one way), as well as the 35 mode-purpose-distance combinations.The results show that long distance travel is strongly related to income: air is most income-elastic, followed by rail, car and finally coach. This is the case for most journey purposes and distance bands. Notable is the substantial difference in income elasticities for rail for business/commuting as opposed to holiday/leisure/VFR. In addition, the income elasticity for coach travel is very low, and zero for the majority of purpose-distance bands, suggesting coach travel to be an inferior mode in comparison to car, rail and air. Regarding journey distance, we find that longer distance journeys are more income elastic than shorter journeys.For total long distance travel, the study indicates that women travel less than men, the elderly less than younger people, the employed and students more than others, those in one adult households more than those in larger households and those in households with children less than those without. Long distance travel is also lowest for individuals living in London and greatest for those in the South West, and increases as the size of the municipality declines.     

Assessment of hub status among Asian ports from a network perspective

This paper proposes a novel network-based hub port assessment (NHPA) model through explicit formulations of connectivity and cooperation indices. Such a model is useful for port operators and policy makers to evaluate the relative influences of various quality characteristics from which carriers base their port choices on and identify port partners. Key insights can be obtained for port authorities to improve their port infrastructures and operations to achieve a competitive and sustainable hub port status. Three comprehensive case studies are conducted to assess the current standings and potentials of major Asian ports within networks of major carriers.     

Port performance in Asia: Does production efficiency imply environmental efficiency?

Atmospheric and water pollution are two main sources of negative environmental externalities generated by shipping. This study recognizes the negative externalities in the production of port services in East Asia by explicitly incorporating environmental impacts of shipping. Programming techniques are used to analyze 156 Origin–Destination pairs between 13 major East Asian ports, to derive the externality-augmented measures of port productivity and efficiency at the waterside. The results suggest that the inclusion of externality mitigation strategies can exert a considerable influence on efficiency performance.     

Volatility of car ownership, commuting mode and time in the UK

This paper has two objectives: to examine the volatility of travel behaviour over time and consider the factors explaining this volatility; and to estimate the factors determining car ownership and commuting by car. The analysis is based on observations of individuals and households over a period of up to 11 years obtained from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). Changes in car ownership, commuting mode and commuting time over a period of years for the same individuals/households are examined to determine the extent to which these change from year-to-year. This volatility of individual behaviour is a measure of the ease of change or adaptation. If behaviour changes easily, policy measures are likely to have a stronger and more rapid effect than if there is more resistance to change. The changes are “explained” in terms of factors such as moving house, changing job and employment status. The factors determining car ownership and commuting by car are analysed using a dynamic panel-data models.     

主动维护 缩短停工期 降低成本

在制造业产成品的总成本中，会有四分之一以上用于维护。大部分的突然停工都由机械配件故障引发。预防此类故障、降低维护费用的关键在于实施主动维护方法而非依赖传统的被动反应方法。公司可以通过实施在乐泰。可靠性维修研讨交流会上学到的方法实现成本的节约、防止发生机械故障、漏气或漏油。     

Frequency domain analysis of a tension leg platform with statistical linearization of the tendon restoring forces

The dynamics of a tension leg platform have important nonlinearities which must be approximated in some manner in a frequency domain analysis. For irregular waves, the well-documented method of statistical linearization is commonly employed for the drag forces, but it is seldom applied to the restoring forces. In earlier studies, the stiffness linearization has been limited to the surge motion. This paper presents the formulation for the linearization in all six degrees-of-freedom. To this end, the nonlinear restoring function and tangent stiffness matrix are derived, and extensive nonlinear couplings between the different modes are found to exist. The performance of the linearized frequency domain approach is benchmarked against time domain simulations for a problem involving large platform motions. It is found that subject to certain conditions, which are relatively mild, the linearization technique facilitates accurate predictions of the mean offsets and the response variances, including the slow-drift component.     

Spatial and Temporal Changes in Access Rights to Shellfish Resources in British Columbia

Over the past decade, the shellfish and finfish aquaculture industry has expanded rapidly in coastal British Columbia (BC) Canada. Foreshore and nearshore shellfish and finfish aquaculture leaseholds are sited in close proximity or in direct competition with habitat for wild shellfish. As a result, some wild shellfish harvesters believe shellfish farms are significantly reducing access to beaches and estuarine areas for wild harvesting, or that salmon farms are contaminating wild shellfish stocks. In this article, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are used to analyze spatial and temporal trends in the growth of shellfish and finfish aquaculture tenures in BC, while interviews with stakeholders in coastal communities are used to explore user conflicts and the implications of changing access rights on the distribution of marine resources. Qualitative and quantitative findings suggest that shellfish aquaculture provides significant economic opportunities for coastal communities, but that such development may hold increased risk of spatial conflicts over marine habitat as the aquaculture industry continues to grow.     

Experimental and numerical study of the effects of heave plate on the motion of a new deep draft multi-spar platform

The heave motion of a floating structure is critical, as a favorable heave characteristic permits dry tree systems, amongst other benefits. The heave response can be suppressed by installing heave plates. However, the associated hydrodynamic effects, which include viscous damping and added mass, are very complicated. Moreover, there are limited experimental investigations to understand the heave plate effects on actual platform designs. This paper aims to study the abovementioned issue based on a novel deep draft multi-spar (DDMS) platform, for four different configurations (with/without upper and lower heave plates). A set of experiments (free decay, regular and irregular wave tests) are conducted, and compared with time domain and linearized frequency domain analyses. Amongst other things, the investigations and discussions include the added mass and damping coefficients for the platform and heave plates, comparison of experimental and numerical results, and the influence of the heave plates on the surge, heave and pitch motions.     

The effect of prices and income on car travel in the UK

The objective of this paper is to analyse the factors determining household car travel, and specifically the effects of household income and the prices of cars and motor fuels, and to explore the intertemporal pattern of adjustment. The question of asymmetry in the response to rising and falling income is also addressed. Such asymmetry may be caused by habit or resistance to change or the tendency to acquire habits to consume more easily than to abandon them. The impact of prices, the speed of adjustment and the resistance to change will be important in determining the possibility of influencing travel behaviour and specifically car use. The study utilises repeated cross-section data from the annual UK Family Expenditure Surveys and employs a pseudo-panel methodology. The results are compared with those for car ownership estimated on the basis of similar models.     

The relative contribution of transportation to supply chain greenhouse gas emissions: A case study of American wheat

This life cycle assessment case study puts the supply chain contribution of transportation to greenhouse gas emissions in context with other contributors using American wheat grain as a representative product. Multiple locations, species and routes to market are investigated. Transportation contributes 39–56% of the supply chain emissions, whereas there is a 101% intra-species and 62% inter-species variation in greenhouse gas emissions from production, demonstrating that transportation is both of smaller magnitude, and less sensitive than other factors, in particular, field sequestration.