A human and social development perspective on maritime policies

The linkages between shipping and port policies, and human and social development are explored in this paper, in view of discussing possible ways how those policies can contribute to human well-being. A framework based on the capability approach is used to conceptually interrogate the contents of policies in terms of elements of human and social development. Integrated ocean policies are considered, in this context, as useful frameworks for aligning maritime policies with broader development goals, as well as with the concerns and priorities of other sectors. Finally, some practical issues regarding the operationalisation of policy impact studies based on multidimensional human development are discussed, highlighting possible areas for future research.     

The development of road and rail transport safety valuation in the United Kingdom

An extensive body of theoretical and empirical work has been undertaken in the UK since the middle of the last century on the estimation of values of safety for use in the appraisal of proposed transport projects, particularly road and rail. This research has focused largely on ‘willingness-to-pay’ based values in order to measure the strength of the travelling public's preference for marginal improvements in transport safety, relative to consumption of other goods and services. In terms of practical policy making, the research has resulted in a set of values for the prevention of statistical fatalities and non-fatal injuries that are applied not only in transport safety decision making, but also in other public sector contexts. This paper summarises the main findings of this research.     

舰船安全评估软件的船体建模方法研究

文章描述了一个3D几何模型的快速建立方式,它适合舰船的安全评估.模型建立在OPENGL基础上.该快递建模系统的基本功能是建立船体型线模型、总布置模型和主要纵向结构模型.开发出的模型与舰船安全评估的其他应用程序(如静水力计算、总强度分析等)集成起来,可以评估破损舰船的安全性.     

Paradoxes of rationality in road safety policy

Rationality is an ideal for transport safety policy. As developed within normative welfare economics, rationality denotes the efficient use of safety measures based on cost–benefit analyses that include all relevant impacts of the measures. Efficiency in the technical sense of the term provides a perfectly clear and precise guideline for policy priorities. Nevertheless, some choices that are guided by cost–benefit analysis may strike us as paradoxical or counterintuitive. A paradox of rationality refers to any situation in which conflicting choices can both be defended as rational. This paper discusses a number of choices that may seem paradoxical. The first involves the choice between options that have identical impacts on safety, but in which these impacts are valued differently. The second deals with the tendency for preference reversals to occur when preferences for the provision of safety are aggregated. The third discusses the inability of conventional measures of willingness-to-pay to reflect the intensity of preferences. The fourth concerns the tendency for policy choice to favour the rich at the expense of the poor when willingness-to-pay is not adjusted for the marginal utility of money. A fifth situation refers to the fact that a policy option that looks attractive ex ante may fail an ex post compensation test because utility functions depend on health state. There is a potential conflict between individual and collective rationality with respect to the costs and benefits of some road safety measures. When developing a road safety programme, a set of road safety measures whose benefits exceed the costs when considered as stand-alone measures could have benefits smaller than cost when combined in a programme consisting of all the measures. Finally, there is a potential conflict between efficiency and negotiated consensus as mechanisms of resource allocation in the public sector. The sources of the paradoxes and ways of avoiding them are discussed. Some of the paradoxes can be avoided if changes in risk are valued in terms of a fixed price per unit of risk rather than according to a non-linear demand function.     

Transport pricing and Public-Private Partnerships in theory: Issues and Suggestions

This chapter offers a theoretical examination of the following questions: what are the issues that arise when Social Marginal Cost Pricing is to be incorporated in Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs); and how may these issues be dealt with?We first briefly discuss Public-Private Partnerships in transport: what are the defining characteristics and what are the main types that exist in the different modes of transport? Next we consider the economics of Public-Private Partnerships, in particular from the viewpoint of incentives. Subsequently we identify and examine the issues that arise when Social Marginal Cost Pricing is to be incorporated in PPPs as a regulation with regard to pricing in the transport sector. Lastly, we investigate the possibilities of resolving these issues.     

Hybrid steering cultures in the governance of public transport: A successful way to meet demands?

This paper concerns steering aspects in the governance context of public transport. Various theoretical views of steering have been presented over the years, and it has been argued that a multiple-principal context often leads to fragmented steering. The paper aims to identify steering culture models found among principals operating in the same public transport context, and to explain how a successful procurement outcome is possible, despite the hybrid of steering cultures. The paper is based on an empirical analysis of a Swedish county's planning process that resulted in a very successful procurement outcome that met high environmental and safety standards at a relatively low cost. This procurement was seen as a triumph by principals. The findings presents the existence of various steering cultures among the principals, leading to the conclusion that a “metagovernor,” in this case the PTA, is central to achieving successful outcomes. The metagovernor designed the planning process and formulated a procurement document that satisfied the principals. In this process, the metagovernor negotiated separately with each principal, focusing on the particular characteristics of each principal.     

我国水运工程科学研究的现状

经过近年来的快速发展,我国的水运工程科学研究已经达到了较高的水平,但距离工程实际的需求还有很大差距,与国外同行业相比有很多不足。文章总结了淤泥质海岸泥沙运动规律,粉沙质海岸泥沙运动规律,海岸动力及沙质海岸泥沙运动规律,山区河流航道整治技术,平原河流航道整治技术,通航枢纽建设关键技术,水工构造物检测、评估与加固技术,环境保护技术,淤泥质海岸港口适航水深应用技术和水动力数值模拟软件包TK-2D等10个方面的研究现状。总结了现场调查和有关资料分析,理论分析研究,物理模型试验研究和数值模拟研究等4种研究手段的发展现状。目的是促进核心技术的形成,提高为重大工程服务的能力和水平,增强国际竞争力。     

论船舶安全检查与海事调查的统合

针对船舶安全检查与海事调查条块分割的现状,从理论和实践两方面阐述了两者的内在统一性。同时论证了船舶安全检查与海事调查统合的理论基础,并提出了对二者进行整合具体设想。     

Analysis of thirty years evolution of urban growth,transport demand and supply,energy consumption,greenhouse and pollutants emissions in Greater Cairo

The objective of the paper is to analyze evolution of urbanization, transport demand and supply in Greater Cairo (GC) over the last three decades of the 20th century. This is in addition to investigating the impact of city growth on energy consumption and emissions from transport. It utilizes results of 1971, 1978, 1987, 1998 and 2001 travel demand surveys, undertaken during the corresponding GC transport studies; each was published a year or two later. No further transport studies have been carried out in GC over the past decade and in view of the current political situation, it is not envisaged that similar studies will be undertaken in the near future. The analysis includes the evolution of daily trips, trip purpose share, modal share and number of cars. More recent trends for 2006/2007 vehicle registration by type and size are given. The evolution of transport supply covers projects until early 2012. In parallel estimates of the evolution of energy consumption and cost, emissions of greenhouse gases (CO₂) and pollutants (CO, HC and NO_x) are given for 1971/2001. The adopted estimation methodology is summarized. Comparative analysis of relevant evolution indexes and trends of growth between 1971 and 2001, taking the former as base year, is given. Land use and transport policies and projects that in some cases helped, directly or indirectly, to reduce traffic congestion, or at least prevented an increase, are addressed, commenting on their outcomes. Thus, transferable experience are useful to sister cities benefiting from successes and avoiding drawbacks. The evolution of the impact of GC metro on energy consumption and cost, and GHG emissions is given for 1987/2001, assuming the scenario “metro did not exist”. More recent impact analysis is given for 2007/2008, as the data allowed estimating traffic volumes that would have been added to the congested metro corridors under the above scenario; and the related fuel consumption and cost and GHGs. The paper ends with conclusions on GC evolution, learned lessons and suggests repeating similar work in other mega cities of the developing countries. Further research is emphasized, e.g., modeling the relationship between land use, transport, energy and emissions; modeling emission factors by vehicle type; and studying fuel-subsidy-reduction scenarios and their socio-economic effects.     

Situation and prospects of shipboard integrated power system reconfiguration technology北大核心CSCD

当前,船舶综合电力系统(IPS)正朝着复杂化、模块化、自动化方向发展,研究快速、稳定、能够应对各种突发状况的船舶综合电力系统重构技术对保障船舶安全和可靠航行具有重要意义。首先,综述当前国内外在船舶综合电力系统重构技术方面的研究进展,讨论集中式重构和分布式重构的特点,并对数学优化算法、启发式算法、人工智能算法等进行归纳总结;然后,分析面对多重并发故障时重构技术所面临的困难与挑战,提出需重点关注混杂系统建模和分层分布式重构框架的建立;最后,从重构模型建立、算法优化、分布式架构等方面对未来船舶综合电力系统重构的发展提出设想和建议。     

Activity based travel demand models as a tool for evaluating sustainable transportation policies

India is in the course of an economic transition. The economic growth nurtured the life in the cities and cities have become a major livelihood destination for everyone. This migration of people contributed to the increased urbanization of Indian cities. The booming economy fostered the well-being and shaped the lifestyle of people in such a way that the dependency on private vehicle has become an unavoidable affair. Along with population growth, the increased vehicle ownership gave rise to overall spurt in travel demand. But the supply side lagged behind the demand adding to many of the transport related externalities such as accidents, congestion, pollution, inequity etc. The importance of sustainability is understood in the current urban transport scenario leading to the development and promotion of sustainable transport polices. The core agenda of these polices is to target the travel behavior of people and change the way they travel by creating a different travel environment. However, the impacts of many such policies are either unknown or complex. Hence, before adopting and implementing such policies, it is important for the decision makers to be aware of the impacts of them. The role of travel demand models comes here as they predict the future travel demand under different policy scenarios. This paper reviews the ability of travel demand models applied in India in analyzing the sustainable transport policies. The study found that the conventional model system in India, which is trip based four step aggregate methodology, is inadequate in analyzing the sustainable transport policies. A review of alternative approach, known as activity based travel demand modeling found that they are capable of handling such policies better than conventional models and are assistive to the decision makers in arriving at right mix of polices specific to the situations. Since there is no operational activity based travel demand model system developed in India, the study at the end envisaged a conceptual framework of an integrated activity based travel demand model based on the requirements identified from the review. This can potentially replace the existing travel demand models and can be used for planning applications once the modification & validation have been done according to the existing activity-travel behavior of individuals.     

Part I: Externalities and economic policies in road transport

Road transport imposes negative externalities on society. These externalities include environmental and road damage, accidents, congestion, and oil dependence. The cost of these externalities to society is in general not reflected in the current market prices in the road transport sector.An efficient mobility model for the future must take into account the true costs of transport and its regulatory framework will need to create incentives for people to make sustainable transport choices. This paper discusses the use of economic instruments to correct road transport externalities, but gives relatively more weight to the problem of carbon emissions from road transport, as this is particularly challenging, given its global and long-term nature.Economics offers two types of instruments for addressing the problem of transport externalities: command-and-control and incentive-based policies.Command-and-control policies are government regulations which force consumers and producers to change their behaviour. They are the most widely used policy instruments. Examples include vehicle emission and fuel standards in the US as well as driving or parking restrictions in Singapore. The implementation cost of these instruments to the government is small. Although from an economic perspective these policies often fail to achieve an efficient market outcome, the presence of political constraints often make them the preferred option, in terms of feasibility and effectiveness.Economic theory shows how policies, which affect consumption and production incentives, can be used to achieve the optimal outcome in the presence of externalities. Incentive-based policies function within a new or an altered market. We first examine incentive-based policies, which cap the aggregate amount of the externality, such as carbon emissions, by allocating permits or rights to the emitters. The emitters are then free to trade their permits amongst them. The permit allocation mechanism is important-although market efficiency would be satisfied by an auction, political influences usually favour a proportional allocation based on historic emissions. We discuss EU ETS as an example of a cap-and-trade system, however, no such policy for CO₂ emissions in road transport has been implemented anywhere in the world to date.Fiscal instruments are, like command-and-control, widely used in road transport, because they are relatively cheap and simple to implement. They include the use of taxes and charges in order to bridge the gap between private and the social costs and, in principle, can lead to an efficient market solution. Registration, ownership, fuel, emissions, usage taxes, and parking and congestion charges have been implemented in many countries around the world. On the other side of the spectrum, subsidies can be given to those scrapping old cars and buying fuel-efficient vehicles. Some cities, such as London, have implemented congestion charges and many states in the United States have introduced high occupancy lanes. Other interesting possibilities include pay-as-you-drive insurance and other usage charges. However, the size and scope of taxes and subsidies are determined by governments, and because of their imperfect knowledge of the market the outcome is still likely to be inefficient.Governments have many effective economic instruments to create a sustainable road transport model. These instruments can be used separately or together, but their implementation will be necessary in the nearest future.     

Workshop 6: The public agenda: What is working and what is missing

Workshop 6 topics covered social inclusion, the informal transport sector, transport in developing countries and sustainability. The strong connections and complimentary goals were noted, where solutions to social exclusion and greenhouse gas reduction can both be realised with good transport and urban planning. There is an opportunity for developing countries to avoid the transport mistakes in many developed countries, such as car dependence. This will involve the development of infrastructure that offers accessible public transport to the majority of people, providing resources to the informal transport system and integrating this with public transport. The workshop considered specific issues such as rural transport, new technology, car tolls to subsidise public transport, safety issues with informal transport and the failure to evaluate the longer-term impacts of many major transport infrastructure developments. Recommendations were made in relation to research and policy and future Thredbo topics.     

Risk assessment framework for exposure of cargo and ports to natural hazards and climate extremes

There is an increase in risks and catastrophic losses in maritime transport including ports and cargo. Significant losses have been associated with large scale natural hazards, such as earthquakes, tsunami, cyclones, and other extreme weather events. This paper identifies the main gaps in understanding maritime risks in transportation research. The gaps are attributed to insufficient empirical work available from the maritime transport and logistics research community to guide multi-risk and natural hazards impact assessment on seaport and cargo. In addition, disaster studies communities have barely made adequate efforts to understand and assess port and cargo risks arising from multi-hazards and disaster events. This paper examines existing conceptual frameworks concerning exposure and risk assessments of natural catastrophe’s impacts. Furthermore, the paper identifies trends and gaps in risk assessment frameworks in the field of disaster studies that can be beneficial for maritime risk research. The authors propose a new risk assessment framework that can guide future research and multi-hazard risk assessment processes at different scales of maritime risks.     

Gendered patterns of IMT adoption and use: Learning from action research

This paper illustrates the value of using an action research methodology to improve understanding of gendered patterns of adoption and non-adoption of Intermediate Means of Transport (IMTs) and similar gender-related transport issues. It presents results from a novel action research project undertaken in five farming villages in southern Ghana, a region where IMT usage is currently low. The participatory action research study not only revealed important issues around differences between stated preferences and actual gendered patterns of adoption and non-adoption in the particular context of southern Ghana, but offers a methodology which may have value in many other gender and transport contexts across sub-Saharan Africa and beyond.     

Port concentration, inter-port competition and revitalization: the case of Mombasa, Kenya

Mombasa is overwhelmingly the dominant port, urban and industrial complex on the Kenya coast. Improvements in operational efficiency, management restructuring and the revitalization of the port in the competitive context of the East A frican port system as a whole are critically important current policy objectives. These issues are discussed in the context of the character and development of the port. Two further issues are outlined: the proposal to establish a free port at Mombasa, and the idea of developing a second deepwater port elsewhere on the Kenya coast. Both are considered interesting but premature.     

Workshop 1: Performance measurement and compliance

This workshop discussed challenges of measuring the performance of transport contracts, which is usually achieved by benchmarking the relevant services against a few key performance indicators (KPIs). Such KPIs (the workshop identified cost efficiency, service quality and safety/security as the top three) can be explicitly included in the contracts (with a focus on compliance) or can be rather informal and part of a trusting partnership. Limited availability of good data and appropriate information technology systems appear to be the greatest challenges within developed markets. In the context of creating a formal market (such as the South African taxi market), which encourages public transport measurement and compliance, our findings suggest that it is important to set as a first step minimum standards to address the backlog with respect to establishing performance measurement regimes.     

The provision of home to school transport in Northern Ireland

The provision of home to school transport is an important element of transport policy in local communities. This paper examines the provision of home to school transport in Northern Ireland. It reviews the nature of demand and provision, and the costs involved in providing the current system of home to school transport compared to other parts of the UK. In addition it also discusses issues surrounding the use of the statutory walking distance, safety on buses including the provision of ‘3 for 2’, standing on buses and seatbelts in Northern Ireland.     

Hybrid urban transport systems in developing countries: Portents and prospects

Some South African cities have initiated public transport transformation projects which, in most cases, ultimately envisage the in toto replacement of paratransit operations with formalised BRT systems. There are two likely outcomes: (1) complex negotiations with existing operators and budget constraints will result in the in toto transformation occurring over an extended period of time; or (2) in toto transformation will simply not occur. In either case, cities will depend, for decades, on a ‘hybrid’ public transport system that combines both formal and paratransit operators. This paper presents a case for policy recognition of hybrid systems, and explores how such systems might best be managed. The following categories of hybrid public transport systems are explored through case studies: (1) transformative processes in which paratransit operators are to form or assimilate into companies to operate new services, but this incorporation has proved difficult to complete and the operational and regulatory frameworks remain unchanged; and (2) transformative processes that, from the outset, anticipated a hybrid system and designed the outcome accordingly. A third category of hybrid transport systems, defined as transformative processes that have been amended following a realisation that in toto transformation is unattainable, is also introduced and discussed. The paper concludes by tentatively drawing lessons for appropriate public transport regulation, particularly with respect to Cape Town's transformation project. It is argued that a review of the current national regulatory framework is required to enable possible project modifications that acknowledge system hybridity. It is suggested that regulatory frameworks that accommodate the likely hybrid nature of public transport system outcomes have greater prospects of success than frameworks that do not. Furthermore, it is argued that contextually appropriate and successful public transport transformation projects do not necessarily require the in toto substitution of incumbent paratransit operators, and that they can be integrated with, and complement, formal services.     

Overview of public transport policy developments in South Africa

Public transport in South Africa is one of the most burning issues in the transport sector. The government is faced with huge public pressure to improve public transport systems in the face of rising fuel costs, the pending implementation of expensive urban toll road systems in the Gauteng province, and elsewhere in urban environments, public transport safety issues, public transport fleet renewal, especially the commuter rail services, as well as limited resources to fund public transport. As a developing country, the South African Government has pressing funding issues such as funds needed to improve housing for the poor to improve schooling and public health services. Government is also faced with a vocal minibus taxi industry that transports an estimated 65% of all commuters in the country that is also insisting on subsidies for its services.